Your Black Friday Plan Starts Before the Offer
And it doesn't always involve discounting your prices.
At ACC, we start prepping our clients for Black Friday well before November rolls around.
A strong Black Friday goes well beyond a discount or a few free classes. Built with intention, it sets your studio up for the next 6 to 12 months: new members who stay, cash where you need it, and a January that starts strong.
It comes down to two questions. What does each class actually cost you? And if the offer works, is your business ready for it?
Start with your break-even per class
Before we help a client build a Black Friday offer, we run one number first: your break-even per class.
To find yours:
Start with your instructor's pay per class
Add each class's share of fixed costs (rent, utilities, software), split across your weekly class count
Divide that total by the number of people typically in the room
For example: $50 in instructor pay plus $150 in fixed costs is $200 per class. With 10 people in class, your break-even is $20 a head. That covers costs only, with no profit included.
Now picture a credit pack priced at $15 a class. Every redemption costs you $5. Sell 200 of those credits and that's $1,000 out the door, showing up right as December's extra classes, towels and labor hit the books.
Running this number first is the step that turns a promotion into a profitable one. It's also something the three of us (Lauren, Jaimie and Lisa) each check on our own before any offer gets built.
Then ask: if it works, is your business ready?
Let's say Black Friday goes even better than you hoped. The packages sell out, the bank balance looks great, and your team is sending celebration GIFs in the group chat.
Before you decide what to do with all of it, pull up your Tuesday 5:30 class and ask where those new visits are going to go.
Every package you sell is a promise of future visits. Each one has to fit somewhere on your schedule, with your instructors and inside the capacity you already have. As Jaimie puts it, "for a studio, capacity is your inventory." (Lisa would want us to remind you that the towels count too.)
If Black Friday works, is your business ready for what you're about to create?
Four things to work through before you launch
1. Model the win.
Run the numbers on 50 packages, then 100, then 200, and turn each scenario into actual visits on your schedule. Lisa's rule of thumb is worth taping to your monitor: "Your studio cannot grow if first-timers cannot book class."
2. Follow the money past the sale.
Who buys your offer matters as much as how many you sell. Take the $20 break-even from above. A client who usually pays $28 a class stocks up at $22. That still clears your break-even, but your margin on her visits drops from $8 to $2, and she'll likely keep coming as often as she always has. Across a jumbo pack and a few dozen buyers, that adds up quickly.
Then factor in what it takes to serve the extra demand, like added classes, more instructor hours or a second person at the front desk. As Lisa put it, "there's more to that margin than just the cost of the credit."
3. Give your team a heads-up.
A promotion can push utilization up and revenue per head down in the same month. When you've modeled that in advance, you can tell your team to expect it, and nobody burns hours chasing a false alarm.
4. Decide who you want your buyers to become.
A brand-new client, someone coming back after a break and a longtime member who stocked up will each need a different next step. Ask what a first-timer needs compared with someone who already buys from you every month, then map those journeys while you still have time.
Why doing this now pays off
If the numbers show your schedule can't comfortably hold the offer you have in mind, you can still change the offer before it goes live. Sometimes adjusting what you sell is a smarter move than adding more capacity.
Once you know your break-even and your capacity, you can price with confidence, choose the offer that fits your goal, and decide whether a discount belongs in the plan at all.
Ready to model your Black Friday before it goes live?
Bring your offer, your sales goal and your break-even number to a discovery call. We'll run the scenarios with you across capacity, margin, staffing and client experience, so you head into Black Friday confident your business can handle a big win.
