Episode 314: Women in Wellness Summit 2025 Recap: Planning Your 2026 Profit, Freedom & Exit Options

In this episode of the Female emPOWERed podcast, I’m recapping the 2025 Women in Wellness Business Summit we just wrapped in Miami — two days of honest conversations, strategy, and big vision planning for women who own boutique fitness and wellness businesses.
If you’re a Pilates studio owner, pelvic health physical therapist, yoga or barre studio owner, gym owner, or hybrid wellness practice, this recap will help you audit 2025 and create a real, numbers-backed plan for 2026.
Inside, I break down:
The year-in-review framework I used in my own studios to assess what worked, what didn’t, and what needs to change
How we used my revenue and profit calculator so each attendee left knowing exactly how many visits, classes, or sessions per week they need to hit their salary + profit goals
What our finance panel shared about retirement savings, paying yourself, profit margins, and preparing your books if you ever want to sell
Practical, local-service marketing tips from our marketing panel, including how to leverage AI, reviews, and low-cost strategies in 2026
What our sale & acquisition panel revealed about exit options for “normal-sized” studios and how smaller businesses can grow through acquisition
Why I believe events like this are more than business conferences — they’re about collaboration over competition and creating true freedom for women
I also share a personal perspective on selling a boutique studio, what a realistic exit can look like (even in the mid-six figures), and how that can still create long-term wealth and options for you and your family.
Finally, I introduce my newest mentorship program, the Fit Biz Accelerator, designed for women already at or above $100K/year who are ready to stop DIY-ing and start building real structure, systems, strategy, and sustainability with live support and weekly implementation.
🔗 Get on the Fit Biz Accelerator Waitlist:
christagurka.com/accelerator
🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode on your favorite podcast app and tag me @christagurka if you’re tuning in — I love seeing where you’re listening from!
⏱ Timestamps:
00:00 – Welcome & why this summit matters
02:00 – Who was in the room: Pilates, PT, yoga, hybrid wellness & more
03:30 – The 2025 year-in-review process we used
05:20 – Revenue, profit, and capacity: using the calculator
08:30 – Turning goals into weekly visits, classes, and sessions
10:50 – Finance panel: profit, retirement, and preparing to sell
13:40 – Marketing panel: reviews, AI, and local service marketing
16:50 – Sale & acquisition panel: realistic exits and growth via acquisition
20:00 – Why selling your studio is possible (even if it’s not 8 figures)
22:30 – Collaboration over competition & building better lives
24:30 – Introducing the Fit Biz Accelerator
26:30 – How to join the waitlist + early-bird paid ads training bonus
28:20 – A huge thank you & what’s next

YouTube Keywords (for tags)

women in wellness summit, women in wellness business summit, boutique fitness business, pilates studio owner, physical therapy private practice, pelvic health business, wellness studio business coach, fitness studio business coaching, pilates business mentor, brick and mortar marketing, local service business marketing, fitness studio financials, revenue calculator for studios, profit planning for studios, selling a pilates studio, boutique fitness acquisition, exit strategy for studio owners, women entrepreneurship, female business owners, Krista Gurka, Female emPOWERed podcast, Fit Biz Accelerator, business retreat for fitness professionals, 2026 business planning, wellness studio systems and strategy

Transcript

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies: 0:51

Hey there everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Female Empowered Podcast. I am once again your host, Christa Gurka, and today I will be giving a recap of the exciting, memorable 2025 Women in Wellness Business Summit that just happened in my, at the time of this recording. It happened. Three days ago. And so I'm recording this, follow up this recap because it was two days of real conversation, strategy, reflection, and growth. And I am so, so, so, so incredibly grateful. And I, of course still have my cough, so I'm gonna take a little sip of water. So I. First, wanna say how, hold on. I'm still riding high from the two days. It is a lot of work that goes into it. I presented an entire day myself and then I was the moderator for all the panels on Friday. So it is a lot of work, but I can't even describe to you the energy in the room with women who are. Business owners betting on themselves, women who are showing up to do the work in their business, not just for the sake of more, but for the sake of better. So it's not just more Pilates, more money, more revenue, but it's better systems, better outcomes, better community. And we hadBusinesses that had just been starting out to people that had been in business for over 10 years. We had sole proprietors of people that, women that had home studios, of Pilates in their homes, two Pilates studios that had three locations and over 25 team members. So we had. Hybrid businesses, physical therapy and yoga. We had pelvic health clinicians, we had boutique fitness, personal training gyms. It was so amazing to be in the room with women and all of us, myself included, have the same goal to build. Better, sustainable, profitable, impactful businesses that will support the lives that we actually want, not the other way around. So not building our lives around our business, but building our business around our lives. And when I first started this summit, I started in 2021. I think we had. Nine, maybe 10 women attend that summit. And this year we sold out at 30 and we actually sold out like back in September, which is crazy'cause I never thought that that would actually happen. I had an entire ad strategy, an ad campaign, ad campaign built out, and I never actually really got to use it because we sold out two months early. So. What do I wanna say about this summit? So the first thing is everyone got workbooks. These amazing, amazing workbooks that had all sorts of, graphs and calculators and all sorts in there. So, I go all out and over those two days we really, the, the. Thursday, we talked all about the morning session was all about doing a 20, 25 year in review where basically we led or I led the women through a very specific. Review process, the same one that I used when I was running Pilates in the Grove, and the same one that I did with my team each and every year to really dive into like what worked, what didn't work, what we need to do better with. so we looked at which revenue sources were actually the most profitable, not just in money, but also in ease of delivering those processes. those services, which ones? Costs the most money and the most energy. We did the same with team. Which of your team members are your most productive and which, are your most efficient and which are your most profitable? And sometimes if you're, Team members that are costing you the most money are also the ones with the biggest headache. Those might be decisions you want to make differently as you come in 2026, right? We looked at the boundaries that might need it might be needing a little bit of tightening. We looked at things we really wanted to say no to in 2026, so that we have room to say yes to more of the things we wanna say yes to. Then in the afternoon we took all of those metrics and we, devised a plan for 2026. So we decided what, there's this calculator that I created for them, the spreadsheet that basically says, how much do you as an owner wanna make in 2026? 80,000, 90,000, a hundred thousand, 150,000, 200,000, whatever that number is, and how much profitability do you wanna have in your business? Now, there was a whole exercise we did about whether you, your intention for 2026 is to really be profitable, or your intention in 2026 is to pay yourself more. Or your intention in 2026 is to grow, because sometimes when you're growing, whether that's. Be, hiring team members or doing more marketing or hiring more people, you may be less profitable and that's okay, but it's just important to know what that intention is for the year you're going into, because all of your decisions will be based around that. So. We have this calculator, you put your salary in, your profitability goals and then your monthly, most of your monthly expenses. And then it basically spits out for you the annual revenue you need to create. And from there we were able to work backwards for all different types of businesses like so if you were a class-based studio, what are the different packages you sell? 10 class sessions, 20 class sessions, memberships, and how many of each, how many butts in seats, how many bodies on reformers do you need each and every week to hit your goal? Same thing with the physical therapy practices. Same thing with a hybrid studio. So at the end of the summit, the women left knowing okay, I need to have 100 visits on my schedule each and every week to hit my goal at the end of the year. I need to have. 200 class visits, 50 private visits, and 10 physical therapy visits each and every week in my specific type of visits to hit my revenue and profitable and pay myself what I want to be paid as a business owner. So that is what we did in the afternoon and. It was really exciting to be able to use these calculators and these spreadsheets to help women see in real time what is available to them. So in other words, if someone said, I wanna make 75, I wanna make$80,000 a year, I wanna have a 15% profitability, and these are all the classes, I have my available spots. We actually were able to see that that wasn't. They didn't have the capacity to do that with their current team and their current price points, so that means they either need to adjust their goals accordingly. Or hire more people or get one more extra reformer in the room, or add more reformer classes, which might mean hiring another team member. So now they're able to leave and go back home and say, okay, if I still wanna hit this goal, we can figure out I need one. Pilates instructor and I need to have four more classes on the schedule in order to be able to hit this goal. So that is really powerful. So I really feel when the women leave this summit, they leave with an idea regardless of what type of business you are, when you're, when you come to the summit, they leave with an actual, tangible. To-do list action items of what they need to accomplish in 2026, and because we're only in the beginning of November, they can actually go back, whether it's with themselves or their team, and really outline the full, full strategy week over week, month over month, quarter over quarter of how they are gonna get that number of visits. Each and every week into their business. And so, I think, what was it a goal without a plan is just a wish. So now they have goals and plans so they will be successful. So that was all day on Thursday, and then Friday we had three incredible. Panels. And so what I did this year was instead of having all these experts come and teach, teach different presentations that lasted 45 or 60 minutes, I put all of the experts in one niche into panels together. So our first panel was a financial panel and we had A-C-P-A-A. Bookkeeping and CFO and a wealth manager, financial planner. There's so many different names. We actually talked about that a lot on the panel. So that was the first panel and each of them gave the. Answers to questions in terms of how do you save for retirement? What are, the pros and cons of 4 0 1 Ks or IRAs and the 4 0 1 Ks safe harbor things, and just things to talk about and think about when you're making these decisions and not letting some other professional sway you one way or the other. How to pay yourself properly. What are the good, Percentages of spend in your business, depending on your. Where you are, your stage of business. So if you're growing, I said, your profit might be a little lower and your marketing spend might be 10, 12, even 15%. So we talked about different high yield savings accounts for your business. We talked about what you can put into retirement as a small business owner, or other ways how to create wealth, whether that be through college funds or savings for your children. how to prepare your business, what your book should look like. If you eventually wanna sell or transfer your business down the road. So that was the financial panel. It was really enlightening. I learned quite a bit myself as well. And then the next panel, we had a marketing plan panel. we had the experts on there were chief marketing officers and also founders and CEOs of actual boutique fitness brands. They talked about really boots to the ground. Branding and marketing for local service businesses. Real strategies that work for real local brick and mortar businesses, not just online stuff and not huge digital marketing spends. They talked a lot about, how to use AI in 2026 to run better ads, to run more effective ad campaigns. they actually said, one of the panelists actually said that the. Best low cost way to grow is to work on reviews and get as many reviews as possible. And she talked about her different ways of the process that she had in her business to get reviews and what worked and what didn't work, and testing and different iterations until she finally found what works. So that was really. Exciting the marketing panel. And I think it's really exciting to hear from businesses that live this day in and day out and are also women and also have, tried a lot of different things and can say, this is really what worked for me and this is how we got to that point. So that was really exciting. And then the final panel we had was a sale and acquisition panel where. Myself, I was on there. and then we had another business that was acquired shortly after COVID. She had a really interesting acquisition where she, was they were, they were acquired and then her and her team actually stayed on and this new business, this new brand. So that was interesting. And then we had. Kristen Abel from Boutique Fitness Broker talk about what she sees, not only in how to help businesses prepare for sale, but also one of the conversations I wanted to have was if you wanna grow your business. Maybe you don't have to do it through opening green space and new locations. Maybe you could do it through acquisitions. Maybe you could do it by looking at other businesses and other studios that might be wanting to sell or get out, or maybe they don't even know that selling is an option to them and how to approach those businesses about getting acquired, about how you can use acquisition to grow your brand. It's the way that I opened my second location. I actually. Acquired sort of, another studio and brought them on board and no money exchange hands. It was a, it was a very unique, acquisition, but it was, it was a win-win for everyone. It was a win-win for the clients. It was a win-win for the other business owner. It was a win-win for me. And so acquisition is a really good growth strategy for growing instead of just opening. 2, 3, 4 more locations. You, you acquire the equipment, sometimes you can acquire the lease. So that was a really, really interesting, conversation as well. And a lot of people had a lot of questions. And for me, one of the things that I really, really wanted to do was just show women. I just wanted to open the conversation and plant the seed of what is available to you as a business owner. Now, I know I have heard podcasts, I've had people send me, podcasts before there was a, a pelvic health business that put out their podcasts that you were not gonna sell your business. And I'm gonna come on here and I am going to beg to differ and here's what I'm gonna say. I don't know that a lot of my listeners or people that were at the summit and myself included, by the way, I just exited my business and while I made a a, a great. Amount of money. It's definitely not enough for Modi me to go sit in San Pay for the rest of my life and never work again. That weirdly wasn't my goal for my exit, but it was enough that it gave me choices. And so one of the things I want you to understand is you don't have to just close your doors. Walk away when all of this is done. some people are like, I feel like I'm gonna be in my business till I die. Well, you could if that's your choice. But if you don't want that to be your choice, that doesn't have to be your reality. So even if, even if you build a business. Up to the point that it has repeatable systems, it's turnkey. You are not the one driving everything in the business. You are not the business. So if you left and went away, the business will continue to operate. It's cashflow positive, which new locations can't say they are. So if your business is producing. A hundred,$200,000 in profit every year, and someone can come in and buy that business, they will have in their first year,$200,000 profit. Right? So even if they get financing, and even if they pay you 400, 500,000, 600,000, whatever that is,$300,000 in. For your business, and you take that 300, 400,$500,000 and you invest it, okay? you're 45, 40, 45, 50, I'm 51. But if you're 40, 45 and you invest that 500,000 and you go do your 2.0 or your next thing, or you open another business, or you consult, or you teach or you do all these other things and that.$500,000 conservatively doubles every 10 years. Your$500,000, by the time you're 50 will be a million dollars, and by the time you're 60 will be$2 million and by the time you're 70 will be$4 million. So yeah, we're not selling eight, nine figure exits, but you can take that money. Okay. And you can invest it and have a great retirement plan, and then also have choices. Maybe you don't have to work until you're 60, maybe you don't have to work until you're 55. And then if you look at, you started your business with E, I started my business with$2,400. That was the check that I wrote. To open Pilates on the beach back in 2007. So you started your business with, even on a high end, you started it with$25,000, okay? And you didn't have to, you didn't, you, maybe you did two reformers or one reform, however, it is$25,000 and then 10 years, 15 years later, you sold it for 300,000 or 500,000. That's way better than any multiple you're gonna get in the stock market. And you walk away with that money free and clear and then you again, then you can go invest it and let your money work for you. So this is just what I wanna tell you in terms of selling and exiting. I think people think of sale and they think$10 million not, or Ann Mullum from From Solid core who got$90 million from her sale. That's great. That's awesome. Kudos. I'm super impressed. Amazing. but that doesn't have to be your reality. You can still sell a business for low six, mid six or high six, and at least not walk away with zero. Alright, so I just wanna plant the seed and just so people think maybe, maybe that's a possibility for me. And if you build your business as if you might sell when the time comes and something, maybe something happens death or disability or divorce and you have to sell. It's ready to go. It's ready to go, right. Start with the end in mind is what I always say. The best thing. The best thing about this summit for me is not the information I don't think. I'm not an attendee, so maybe the information is the best thing, but one of the things I love the most are the conversations. The community. The community is the best part. Watching women collaborate, meet each other, watching women collaborate instead of compete, seeing all these walls come down of, of stories they had in their head and support for each other rise to the service that, that, my friends, is what this whole thing is about. And so that's why it matters because the truth is, this isn't for me anyways. This isn't just a business conference for me, it's. A movement, it's a transformation. It's a conversation to open up, to plant the seed of what is possible and what is available to each and every woman in that room, to each and every woman that owns a business or that wants to own a business. From the very beginning of this consulting thing that happened totally organically. It has always been my goal to just change the conversation in the boutique fitness and healthcare and wellness industry to move us from competition and oh, let's not real Pilates, and, oh, that's not really, X, Y, Z, and personal trainers shouldn't do physical therapy and physical therapy shouldn't be personal trainers. Who the fuck cares, it's moving from competition to collaboration, how we make each other better. A rising tide raises all ships. My friends, more people. Doing Pilates means more business for all of us. It's the same way, nicer homes coming into your neighborhood increases the value of your home. It's a good thing. It's a good thing, right? So rather than you looking at, even someone like me or someone like Anne Lum who sold for incredible amounts of money instead of looking at what she doing or she, did that because she has X, Y, Z. Instead of looking at it that, looking at it and saying if she did it. I could do it. What can I build? What can I do to move the needle forward, to get to the place that I want to be? And it doesn't have to be growing a seven or eight figure business, it's just whatever you want. It's for you to be able to have a business where you don't have to ask anyone for time off where you can take weekends, where you can be home by dinner, where you can chaperone your kids' field trip, and then eventually maybe exit with some sort of an asset. I want every single woman in this space to understand what's available to her, what's available to you. These, the listeners, the opportunities, the financial freedom, the growth, and the impact you can have, not only on your clients, not only on your community, but on your kids. And I said, even if you never want to scale the seven figures or sell your business, learning these skills. The education that no one can take away from you that you got as a Pilates instructor or a physical therapist. Education gives you options. It gives you choices to make in your business, and options give you freedom. That's what I care about. Those are the conversations I wanna have. Creating spaces where women feel supported, they feel seen, they feel heard. They can share the stories of what's happening to me, and understand they're not. Alone. Where they can ask the hard questions, learn from each other, leave feeling clear and confident about what to do next. Because at the end of the day, it's not the glitz, it's not the glamor. It's not the highlight reels, it's the transformations that happen in these women's lives, in the tears, in the joy, in the truth. And I'm telling you, I am here for all of it. I am. I'm here for every, and even if I don't have the, and I don't have all the answers, I am 100% committed to the conversation. That's it. That's the magic of having spaces like this. When women come together, we don't just build better businesses. I believe that we create better lives for ourselves and for each other. What's next? first of all, if this excites you and you'd be I wanna be at the next one. I don't know that I'll be able to increase it to more than 30, maybe 32, 33.'cause a woman, group, the room was pretty full unless I decide to have it another venue. But mark it on your calendars right now. Ladies, get out a pen. Don't do it. If you're driving November 5th and sixth, 2020. Six, let me make sure that that is accurate. true because, I said yes, November 5th and sixth, 2026. Enrollment usually happens in, sometime in the summer. I will probably have a wait list up, there probably is a wait list up already on my website. So if you go to Krista gca.com/ceo Summit, you should be able to get your name on the wait list, but if not, it will be up soon and I will make sure to let everyone know. But if you do not want to wait until 2026, I announced excitingly. I am launching a very new program. it is the next step between my community membership, which is$99 a month, and between my inner circle, I'm calling it the Fit Biz Accelerator. It's my newest mentorship option. It's designed for those women who've already really achieved six figures and they're ready to stop doing these DIY programs and learning on their own. And they're really start. They're ready to implement in real time. So what we're gonna be doing together is get real. Weekly implementation time. So basically what we're gonna do is we are gonna be building the systems. We're gonna be building, I don't know if you can see this, but we're gonna be bu this is what I call my four s framework. It's structure, systems, strategy, and Sustainability. So. The structure in your business is that's the people. Making sure you have the right people in the right seats, making sure your pricing is the right structure to achieve your goals, making sure that your processes are all built out so the right people. Can operate the right processes. Okay? And then you have your system. So now that you're pricing your processes and your people are right, you then create all of the systems in your business so that you have the people that are running the systems over and over again, and you're starting to develop your hiring system, your onboarding system, your social media system, your marketing system, your email system. And from there, then once you got that done, then you can develop the strategy. Because what happens is if you start with strategy, but you don't have the systems or the structure in place, you're just gonna fall on your face. Face, you're gonna feel overworked. Alright? So you gotta start with the structure, then the systems and the strategy, and ultimately you make sure that it's sustainable. Because if it's not. What good is profit if you are not at peace to enjoy it? So this is what we, that what we learn in the program, and we're gonna get monthly implementation where we'll actually have, I'm calling them Creative lab time, where we will build a different process, a different system each and every week. So. How do you hire someone? How do you determine their pay rate? What contracts you need, how to create a performance review? We're gonna be doing all of that. So Q1, we talk about structure, then systems and strategy, et cetera. Alright, so it's for you if you are a business generating a hundred thousand dollars or more and you really want to create more structure in your life and freedom in your life, you need. To have a program that walks you through it and helps you implement it in real time. So I will be announcing more in the coming weeks. But if you're listening to this podcast and you're I wanna get myself at least on the wait list for that, what I want you to do is go to www.kriska.com/accelerator. All right, and get yourself on the wait list. I will be doing discovery calls for people that are interested in booking a discovery call with me, and for those that enroll before. November 30th, you, I will be doing a free paid ads training in December. It's a two day paid ads training that's gonna talk all about the system I teach for how to create the right audience, how to create the right strategy, how to build out your creative, and all the new ins and outs that are happening in Google and Facebook. And so that's absolutely free if you sign up for the accelerator by the end of November. Okay, so go visit krista geka.com/accelerator. Get yourself on the wait list. More information's gonna be coming out, but I'm really, really, really excited about this program.'cause I, I really felt it was the next step between the community, um, which is a lot of support. And then the inner circle, which is something really high touch mentorship. So I felt I needed another tier in there. I'm really, really excited to launch this and get it started in January of 2026. So. To all of you that attended the summit, if you're listening to this, thank you. Seriously, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I'm not, I mean. I hope you enjoyed yourself. I did. I hope you'll be there next year. I will. But thank you. You women are the reason that I do what I do. You're the reason I keep pushing and I'm not sitting on a beach in Costa Rica after I sold my business because I love this. I love having the conversations. I love sharing one tidbit or tweaking a little something so that your business is more profitable, more enjoyable, more. Structured in 2026. So if you were there, just thank you. If you were not there and you're listening, save your, save the date for next year and continue to put yourself in the room, whether it be with other like-minded individuals, other business owners, or just women in general that are that who believe in you. Women that believe that what you want to do is possible even before you do surround yourself with women that will shout your name in a room full of opportunities. I will, and if you'd love to join me, I would love to welcome you into my orbit, my world, my circle, and share as much information as I possibly can to make your lives and your businesses better for 2026 and beyond. Here's to build in businesses that work for you. Not against you, my friends. Until next time. Bye for now.