Build one membership at one price, billed every four weeks with a card on file. Pick a date, move every lesson athlete into it, and let current families keep their time slot. Train at least two athletes per coach per hour, and stop selling single lessons.
Why lessons cap your income
Every lesson is a one-time sale. When the hour ends, so does the revenue, and next week you start over. Your income is capped by the hours you can stand in a cage.
"When you do one-on-one sessions or one-off payments, you always have to go back to the well and ask for more water."
Collier Buttgen
The math gets worse as rent, insurance and coach pay go up. Two athletes per coach per hour is the minimum for a training business to stay profitable.
"There's not a single baseball facility in the next 10 years that will be healthy and profitable doing one-on-one lessons. We have to be at least in a two-on-one environment just for the economics to make sense."
Collier Buttgen
A membership fixes this because the family pays every four weeks for as long as the athlete trains with you. Every athlete you keep pays again next cycle without a new sale.
"$400 every four weeks is always better than $100 an hour because of one thing: lifetime value."
Collier Buttgen
Step 1: Build one offer
One membership at one price. A menu of packages makes families compare options when they should be saying yes.
- Format: a set training time each week, two athletes per coach, in a full development program.
- Billing: every four weeks, card on file, with a term.
- Access: scheduled sessions. Unlimited 24/7 cage access is a different business, and it fills your building without paying your coaches.
Sell it as a development program. Families buy what their athlete becomes over a season, so describe the plan, the evaluations and the progress you track. A count of sessions is the least interesting thing about it.
Step 2: Price it from your numbers
For one session a week, we rarely see a healthy program under about $300 a month. Across the country, a two-on-one training membership averages around $400 every four weeks. Start from what you need to take home and what the building costs, then check your price against those numbers. The full method is in our membership pricing guide.
Step 3: Set a date and tell your families
Pick the date the change happens. Talk to your longest families in person first, then announce it to everyone.
- Lead with why. People resist change they don't understand. Explain what the athlete gets before you explain what's changing.
- Keep their slot. Current athletes keep their time. It becomes a small group session with one more athlete in it.
- Thank them. Offer a founding rate to the families who have been with you, a little under your public price.
This is how I tell coaches to word it:
"Here is the transition that we're making. Here's the date that it's happening. Because you've been with us for [X] years and we value you, here's a founding membership offer, and it's at a slight discount to what your public rate will be."
Collier Buttgen
Step 4: Stop selling single lessons
After the switch date, new families join the membership. If you keep a few one-on-one spots, price them as a premium option well above the membership, so the membership is the obvious choice.
Some coaches try to run both models side by side. It splits your schedule and your marketing, and the lessons keep pulling you back onto the floor.
What the numbers look like
At $400 every four weeks, 20 athletes bring in $8,000 every billing cycle, and there are 13 cycles in a year. That's recurring revenue you can plan coach pay and rent around, and you don't have to resell it every week.
"If you've got 20 clients, you're in a really healthy spot to make six figures and literally work 10 hours a week."
Collier Buttgen
