The Powers of Mentors, Marketing, & Management
As a yoga studio and wellness business owner, we have no shortage of decisions to make. How do we know which will have the greatest effect to move business forward and help us reach our goals?
After years of experience in the industry, I have discovered three crucial steps that have the greatest impact to increase revenue, fill classes, and prevent burnout.
In this blog, I'll share my story and insights on these steps, including the potential challenges, so that you can apply them to your own yoga business.
# 1 Hiring a Business Mentor
I hired my first mentor back in June of 2009. This was before smartphones and social media ruled our lives. Information was much more difficult to acquire in 2009 unless you sought out and paid a professional for it. “Experts” weren’t popping up everywhere. Very few people were in the consulting business and even fewer in the wellness consulting business. Blogs and podcasts were rare. I needed help and sought out a mentor to guide me.
Our studio revenue doubled within 6 months while expenses stayed the same. This was a game changer.
A mentor kept me focused, helped me set goals, and provided actionable tactics to meet and exceed those goals. Equally importantly as the business and financial guidance was the emotional support. Feeling less alone made a big difference in my daily attitude.
I don’t recommend a paid mentor today unless they are niche specific and you can work with them live, one-on-one.
So much good information is available online in one format or another. Really be careful where you choose to spend your money. I’ve paid tens of thousands of dollars to a handful of mentors over 15 years. Some of this hard earned cash was better spent than others.
I learned many valuable tactics, but over time, business secrets that were hidden or hard to come by become mainstream and easier to find, understand, and implement.
They're like websites.15 years ago - even 10 - we hired professionals to build our website. In the first 5 years of my business, I even learned basic coding because paying a web designer the standard going rate of $250 per hour to change something on the website was too expensive. I learned to do it myself instead. Today? Drag and drop, no code and no pro required!
If not a mentor, I do recommend that you regularly educate yourself in yoga business skills in some way. Being a great yoga teacher and being great at yoga business don't automatically go hand-in-hand. They both take work, persistence, practice, and education.
Luckily, the availability of information is almost endless:
Blogs
Books
Podcasts
YouTube
Conferences
Masterminds
Retreats
But for all of these warnings, I worked one-to-one with my first mentor from June 2009 - May 2022 and the support was invaluable. A good mentor is worth every cent. Just remember to track your numbers so you know it!
#2 Turning up the Marketing
The second step to boosting revenue in your yoga studio is to focus on marketing. To free up my time and head-space, I had to train and hire more teachers and front desk staff. Then I focused on crafting, implementing, and continuously assessing the results of a marketing plan.
Doing so increased our client base three fold and really set us off into the golden years of our studio success because the classes and the schedule were full. When the client base increased, we could implement more programs like teacher training, workshops, and retreats because we had a larger base to draw from to fill up these courses.
Marketing can be tricky. The basics stay the same but the details change. I enjoyed learning the marketing but not everyone does. This is something that you can hire out. My husband took on the marketing responsibilities so that I could focus on all of the new programs the larger client base demanded. His IT background made learning the algorithms and analyzing the data easy.
Your Yoga Studio is Tree:
Marketing is like watering the roots of the tree. The roots are new members. You need them to grow strong. They will dry up without the water, without the marketing.
Committed members become the branches of the tree.
Your most dedicated clients and staff are the leaves.
The leaves need continued sunshine to thrive.
The sunshine is you! Your encouragement, teaching skills, and dedication to their personal growth must continuously shine on them.
We will have more blogs on marketing specifics because it is such a huge topic. Until then, take some to review what you do now for marketing. What works best and could you increase that in any way?
#3 Hiring a Studio Manager
The third step to running a successful yoga studio is to hire a studio manager. This took many years to get right. We needed the revenue in place to pay a good wage. I needed the leadership skills to attract, hire, train, and matriculate the right people into our studio culture.
The responsibilities of a yoga studio manager position can vary greatly depending on the studio needs.
The very broad outline of what we needed in our manager:
A dependable person at my side who could meet the students' business needs (membership questions, be studio software proficient , etc.)
Support the teachers so they could focus on teaching class
Work with me as a trustworthy, dependable, and fun companion who was eager to see the studio grow
Shared in the studio vision, mission, and core values
A manager who vibrated with the same energy I brought to the studio allowed me to step away from being in the studio daily, without suffering a steep revenue drop, which used to happen whenever I was not there. Hiring a manager prevented my own burnout.
In Closing
Of all of the decisions we make to move business forward, usually just a small handful of them have the highest impact. Hiring a business mentor, turning up the marketing, and hiring a studio manager are three powerful steps to increase revenue, fill classes, and prevent burnout in your yoga studio business. These were the three that worked best for us.
Want to hire mentor? Do your research and homework on them first to verify their skills and how they can help you. Be sure you set clear measurable goals with any mentor you hire so you can hold them accountable and know if and when it is time to cut ties.
A personal mentor may not be right, but continuing your business education in some way it always necessary. Resources today are endless. Just be sure to verity the credentials, try out the tactics, and track the numbers so you know what advice is working.
As for marketing, turning up the volume just a little bit can make a big difference. But again, be sure to track the results. Marketing has a point of diminishing returns. Spending more does not always yield better results so keep and eye on it.
Lastly, to scale a business, we all must learn to hire, fire, and delegate. Start small building up your staff while you hone your own leadership skills. Good managers need training. As the owner embrace the responsibility to attract, hire, and train dedicated yoga teachers and staff. We lead by example.
Strong leadership will reflect in your yoga business as great teaching staff, committed yoga members, and a thriving yoga studio.
Until next time,
Namaste,
Lara
"Working with Lara has always enabled me to grow."
Giselle Meagher, Owner, Desert Shala Yoga, and a former manager at Lara's studio.
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