When we launched Lotus, the promise was simple: give martial arts school owners one place to manage everything. Members, classes, payments, attendance — all under one roof, without the complexity or the enterprise price tag.
That promise hasn't changed. But over the past year, we've been heads-down building, and Lotus has grown into something we're genuinely proud to put in front of you. Today we're pulling back the curtain on everything that's new in Lotus 2.0.
This isn't a minor update. It's a full generational leap — new modules, new automations, new self-service tools for your members, and a fundamentally better understanding of how your business is performing. Let's walk through it all.
🪷 Why 2.0?
We spent a lot of time listening to school owners over the past eighteen months. The feedback was consistent:
- "I spend too much time chasing leads that go cold."
- "My members keep asking me about their attendance and payments — can they just see it themselves?"
- "I have no idea which months are my best months or why."
- "Getting everyone to sign a waiver is a nightmare."
- "I know who's stopped coming in, but I don't know how to bring them back automatically."
Every single one of those pain points has a solution in Lotus 2.0. Here's what we built.
📋 Lead Pipeline: Your Dojo's Sales Board
Every new inquiry is a potential member. But most schools manage their leads in a text message thread, a sticky note on the desk, or — honestly — their head. Lotus 2.0 changes that.
The Lead Pipeline is a Kanban-style board that tracks every prospect through five stages:
| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| New Inquiry | Someone reached out or signed up for more info |
| Contacted | You've been in touch at least once |
| Trial Scheduled | They're booked in for a trial class |
| Trial Completed | They showed up |
| Converted | They signed up — they're now a member |
Every lead shows up as a card on the board with their name, phone number, how many days they've been in the pipeline, and a note count so you never lose context from a previous conversation. You drag cards between columns as they progress. When a lead drops into Converted, Lotus automatically activates them as a full member — no double entry.
Above the board, three live stats show you exactly how your funnel is performing: total active leads, conversions this month, and your average days to close. Over time, that average days number becomes one of the most valuable metrics in your business.
The contact log is one of our favourite small details. Click the notes icon on any card and a panel slides in from the right with a timestamped journal — every call, every text, every "they said they'd think about it." You add a new note right there, and the count badge on the card updates instantly. No more wondering what you said to someone six weeks ago.
📧 Automated Email Sequences: Your School Works While You Sleep
This one took the most engineering effort, and it might be the most impactful feature in Lotus 2.0.
We've built two fully automated email sequences that fire without any manual effort from you. You turn them on once. They run forever.
Prospect Drip Sequence
When a new prospect enters your system, they automatically receive a three-email nurture sequence:
| Day | |
|---|---|
| Day 0 | "Welcome to [Your School] — we'd love to meet you" |
| Day 2 | "Still thinking about joining us?" |
| Day 7 | "Your spot is still waiting at [Your School]" |
Each email is personalised with your school name. The sequence stops the moment they convert. Prospects older than 30 days are automatically excluded — no point emailing someone who enquired two months ago and never responded.
At-Risk Retention Sequence
This one might save you more revenue than anything else in Lotus 2.0.
Every week, students quietly stop showing up. Life gets in the way. They don't cancel — they just fade. By the time you notice, they're already mentally gone. The retention sequence catches them before that happens.
| Absence | |
|---|---|
| 14 days | "We miss you on the mat, [Name]!" |
| 21 days | "A quick check-in from [Your School]" |
| 30 days | "We saved your spot — come back any time" |
The trigger is measured from their last attendance record. Members who've never attended are sensibly excluded — this is about retention, not onboarding.
Both sequences are opt-in per school. You flip a toggle, and that's it. We handle the rest: timing, deduplication, personalisation, and delivery. Even if the cron job runs twice, no one gets the same email twice — we built that guarantee into the database layer.
🌐 Member Self-Service Portal: Give Your Members Their Own Dashboard
Possibly the most-requested feature since day one.
The Member Portal is a mobile-first web app your members can access from their phone, tablet, or computer — no app download required. They can see everything that's theirs:
- Their profile — name, contact details, emergency contact, address — and they can update it themselves
- Their attendance history — the last 50 sessions, dated and timestamped
- Their class schedule — which classes they're enrolled in
- Their payment history — every transaction on their account
Magic-link authentication
There's no password to remember. Members enter their email address, receive a one-click login link valid for 24 hours, click it, and they're in. Clean, secure, and zero support tickets about forgotten passwords.
How to share it
Every school gets a unique portal URL: openblackbelt.com/lotus/portal/?school=YOUR_HASH
Drop it in your welcome email, pin it in your Facebook group, add it to your email signature. Once members know it exists, you'll immediately see fewer "can you send me my receipt?" messages.
The portal is entirely separate from the admin dashboard — members can only see their own data. There's no way for a member to access another member's information or anything from the admin side.
💰 Revenue Dashboard: Finally Understand Your Numbers
The standard payments page tells you what happened. The new Revenue Dashboard tells you what it means.
Six KPI cards give you the headline numbers at a glance: MRR estimate, this month's income, last month, YTD, this month's net, and this month's expenses. Below the cards, a 12-month trend chart plots income and expenses as grouped bars with a net profit line overlay — seasonality visible at a glance.
The new and churned members panel is the most actionable view on the page. Each month it tells you exactly who started paying (new payers) and who stopped (churned payers) — by name. Not a statistic. By name. That's who to call.
✍️ Digital Waiver System: Paperless, Trackable, Legally Sound
Clipboards and paper waivers get lost. PDFs emailed back and forth are a compliance headache. The Digital Waiver System replaces all of that with a clean, mobile-friendly signing flow that takes under two minutes.
Each member gets a unique signing link. When they open it, your custom waiver text is displayed, they check a consent box, draw their signature directly on screen, and submit. Their signature is saved as an image file, timestamped and stored on their student record.
The Waivers page in your admin shows a live tracker: total members, how many have signed, how many haven't, and a percentage bar. You can also copy a bulk waiver link to send to your whole school at once.
📅 Class Roster: Know Who's Walking Through the Door
The Class Roster shows every class slot for the next 14 days in a sidebar. Click any slot and the roster loads instantly — each booked member with their name, rank, email, booking time, and a toggle to mark them present. Hit Mark All Attended if everyone showed up.
Each mark updates the member's last_attend date in real time — which feeds directly into the retention sequence triggers.
🥋 Belt Testing Module: Run Promotions Like a Pro
Define your school's belt system once — the ranks, minimum time at rank, minimum training hours. Before any grading, run the eligibility report: Lotus cross-references every active student's current rank, time at rank, and attendance against your requirements. Students who qualify are green. Students who are close get a summary of what they still need.
Students who pass a grading are automatically moved to their next rank in Lotus. The history of every grading event stays on record — useful for tracking progression over years.
Ready to try Lotus 2.0?
$49.99/month. 30-day free trial. No setup fees. No contracts.
Start your free trial →A Note From Us
Building Lotus is, genuinely, one of the most rewarding things we've ever done. Every feature in this post came directly from conversations with school owners — people who wake up every day to teach, train, and build communities around something they love.
We're a small team, and we care deeply about this product and the people who use it. If you have feedback, a feature request, or just want to say hi — reach out. We read every message.
Now get back on the mat. 🥋
Open Black Belt builds software for martial arts schools and fitness studios. Lotus is our all-in-one school management platform. Learn more at openblackbelt.com.