The 9 KPIs to Track Every Week
By OSJJ
Open Source Jiu-Jitsu
The 9 KPIs
What they are. What they mean. Where each one lives in your academy.
For any owner who runs their academy by feel and suspects they could not answer basic questions about their business off the top of their head.
Most academies are run on guesswork because most owners cannot see what is actually happening inside their business. The 9 KPIs are the small set of numbers that turn the invisible parts of an academy into something you can manage. This is the reference guide to all nine — what each one is, what it tells you, and where to look when the number is off.
What is inside:
- Why running on feel is not a strategy, and the simple test that proves it
- The five acquisition KPIs: leads, contact, bookings, shows, and closes
- The two retention KPIs: holds as the warning light and cancellations as the diagnostic
- The two outcome KPIs: collected MRR and MRR growth as the real scoreboard
- How the nine connect into one funnel, and how to read a leak when revenue drops
- The 20-to-30-minute weekly review that separates owners running a business from owners reacting to one
What a KPI actually is
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. The acronym makes it sound technical. It is not. A KPI is just a number that tells you how a specific part of your business is performing.
Every academy already has data running through it: leads coming in, classes happening, members staying or leaving, money moving in and out the door. The question is whether anyone is looking at the numbers that actually matter, on a regular schedule, in a way that produces decisions instead of just dashboards.
Most owners run their academy by feel. “Things felt pretty good this month.” “I think we signed up a few people last week.” “Cancellations seem low.” Feel is not a strategy. Numbers are.
Why KPIs decide whether you can run a business
You cannot fix what you cannot see. That single sentence is the entire case for tracking KPIs. Most academy problems are invisible until they are catastrophic, and by the time the owner finally feels them, the leak has been running for months.
Visibility | You cannot fix what you cannot see. KPIs make the invisible parts of your business visible — lead flow, conversion gaps, member drift, retention trends — before they become emergencies. |
Diagnosis | When revenue drops or growth stalls, KPIs tell you which engine broke. Acquisition? Retention? Pricing? Without them, every breakdown looks the same: chaos. With them, every breakdown points to a specific gate. |
Discipline | KPIs force decisions on a schedule, not when something hurts. A 20-minute weekly review prevents the quarterly panic. The owners who track consistently are the owners who never get blindsided. |
Trend, not snapshot | One month tells you nothing. Three months tells you everything. KPIs tracked weekly compound into trend lines that no gut feeling can match — and trend is what tells you whether what you are doing is actually working. |
The test
Here is the simplest way to know whether you are actually running your academy or just reacting to it. Try to answer these questions right now, off the top of your head, without checking anything:
- How many leads did you get last month?
- How many of those leads did you actually reach and talk to?
- How many of those booked a trial?
- How many of those actually showed up?
- How many of those signed up?
- How many members put their membership on hold?
- How many cancelled, and what reason did each one give?
- Is your revenue up or down from 90 days ago, and by how much?
If you cannot answer most of those within a reasonable range, you are flying blind. Every decision you make about the business is a guess. The 9 KPIs that follow are the answer to that problem.
How the 9 KPIs are organized
Every academy has two engines. One brings new students through the door. The other keeps the students you already have. Almost every problem in a Jiu-Jitsu business shows up as a breakdown in one of those two engines, or in the relationship between them.
The 9 KPIs split into three groups that map to those engines:
- Acquisition KPIs (1 to 5) — the funnel that turns strangers into members.
- Retention KPIs (6 to 7) — the warning signs that members are leaving or about to leave.
- Outcome KPIs (8 to 9) — the scoreboard. Revenue is the result of both engines working, not a category of its own. When revenue moves, the funnel above tells you which engine caused it.
ACQUISITION KPIs • Bringing new members in |
1 | Leads Generated |
What it is | Every new inquiry that came in this week or this month. Form fills, phone calls, social media DMs, walk-ins, referrals. Anyone who raised their hand. |
What it tells you | Whether your marketing is working. If leads are low, nothing downstream can save you. You cannot close people who never showed up in the first place. |
Where to look | Marketing channels. Referral program. Local visibility. Paid ads if you are running them. Lead source tracking so you know what is actually producing. |
2 | Leads Contacted |
What it is | Of the leads that came in, how many you actually reached and made real contact with. A connected phone call, a real text exchange, a conversation. Not a voicemail and not an unanswered message. |
What it tells you | Whether your follow-up is actually happening. A lead you never reached cannot book, show, or close. If leads are coming in but contact is low, the problem is speed and persistence: nobody is getting to them, or nobody is trying enough times. |
Where to look | Speed to lead (the first attempt should be within minutes). Number of follow-up attempts before giving up. Calling, not just texting. Whoever owns lead response, and whether they have a documented cadence to follow. |
3 | Booked Trials |
What it is | Of the leads that came in, how many actually scheduled a trial class. This is your booking conversion rate. |
What it tells you | Whether your front-end communication is working. The phone, the text follow-up, the response speed, the script. If you are getting leads but they are not booking, the problem is almost always here. |
Where to look | Response time (under 5 minutes is the standard). Calling, not just texting. The booking script. Whoever owns lead response and how trained they are. |
4 | Show Rate |
What it is | Of everyone who booked a trial, how many actually walked through the door. This is your show rate. |
What it tells you | Whether your pre-trial process is working. The window between booking and showing up is where most no-shows are lost. If show rate is low, people booked on impulse and nothing kept them committed. |
Where to look | Confirmation sequence. Day-before reminder. Day-of reminder. A short message that builds anticipation instead of just confirming the appointment. |
5 | Close Rate |
What it is | Of everyone who showed up for a trial, how many signed up as members. This is your close rate. Industry standard for a solid intro process is 60 to 75 percent. |
What it tells you | Whether your intro experience and your sales conversation are working. Below 60 percent, something is breaking inside the four walls of the academy. |
Where to look | Structure of the intro class. Whether someone actually sits the prospect down after class. The pricing conversation. Whether anyone is asking for the sale. |
RETENTION KPIs • Keeping the members you already have |
6 | Holds |
What it is | How many active members put their membership on pause this week or this month. A hold is not a cancellation, but it is the warning light on the dashboard. |
What it tells you | That members are finding reasons to step away. Climbing holds almost always become climbing cancellations 30 to 90 days later. Holds give you a window to intervene before the membership is lost. |
Where to look | Reach out personally to anyone who goes on hold. Ask why. Track the reason. Look for patterns: schedule, injury, life event, cost. Patterns tell you what to address at the system level. |
7 | Cancellations |
What it is | How many members cancelled this week or this month, and just as important, the reason each one gave. |
What it tells you | Cancellation reasons are the most underused tool in any academy's retention system. Schedule conflicts mean a programming problem. Money means a value or hardship problem. Culture or experience means a leadership problem. The number alone is incomplete; the reason is where the answer lives. |
Where to look | Build a written cancellation process that captures the reason every time. Review the reasons monthly. Address patterns with system changes, not one-off conversations. |
OUTCOME KPIs • The scoreboard for both engines |
8 | Collected MRR |
What it is | What the academy actually collected this week or this month. Not invoiced. Not billed. Collected. The money in the bank. |
What it tells you | Your real financial pulse. Invoiced revenue is a story. Collected revenue is the truth. Track this consistently and you have a baseline to measure every other change against. |
Where to look | If revenue is off, the funnel above tells you why. Acquisition KPIs weak? New money is not coming in. Retention KPIs weak? Old money is walking out. Revenue is the symptom; KPIs 1 to 7 are the diagnosis. |
9 | MRR Growth |
What it is | The change in collected revenue, in dollars and as a percentage. Compare this month to last month, and this month to the same month last year if you have the data. |
What it tells you | Direction, not snapshot. A single month tells you very little. A trend tells you everything. Three months of decline is a fire alarm. Three months of growth tells you what is working and worth doubling down on. |
Where to look | Do not react to one month. Look at three. If the trend is wrong, walk back up the funnel — leads, contacts, bookings, shows, closes, holds, cancellations — and find the broken link before you change anything else. |
How the 9 KPIs connect
These numbers form a funnel. Strangers come in at the top. Revenue comes out at the bottom. Every number in between is a gate, and if something is leaking, the numbers will show you exactly where.
If you see this | The leak is here |
|---|---|
Strong leads, weak contact | Follow-up speed and persistence — nobody is reaching the leads (Acquisition) |
Good contact, weak bookings | Booking script and the trial offer itself (Acquisition) |
Strong bookings, weak shows | Confirmation and reminder sequence (Acquisition) |
Strong shows, weak closes | Intro class and sales conversation (Acquisition) |
Strong acquisition, declining revenue | Holds and cancellations — retention (Retention) |
Climbing holds, stable cancellations | Members are slipping; intervene now (Retention) |
Acquisition strong, retention strong, revenue still down | Pricing or member mix — deeper financial review needed |
The bottom line
KPIs are not extra paperwork. They are the difference between knowing your business and guessing at it.
Most academy owners try to fix everything at once when revenue dips, and end up working hard on the wrong things. The 9 KPIs prevent that. They show you exactly which gate is leaking, so you can spend your energy where it actually matters, and leave the gates that are working alone.
Track them weekly. Review them in 20 to 30 minutes once a week. Pick one number to move. Take one action. Repeat. That is what running a real business looks like.
Open Source Jiu-Jitsu
Open Minds. Open Mats. Open Source.