4 Lessons I’ve Learned in the Business of Yoga
It’s 9am in the winter of 2015 and I’m getting ready to wait tables for the opening shift. I have started Yoga to You. I have made my lifelong dream of opening a yoga studio a reality this year, yet my livelihood continues to depend mostly on the service industry. I created an LLC, opened a business checking account, created a website, and now...I wait. I have no idea what I am doing; I majored in English Literature and am relying heavily on my entrepreneurial instincts. I am in a place that most business owners go...a deep depression of the money that was spent and a fear that nothing would ever come of it.
My phone rings. I answer, “hello.”
“Hi,” says the voice, “is this Yoga to You? I am calling because I never got an email back. I sent a submission on the website about a corporate class.”
Yes!” I exclaim. “This is Yoga to You. I’m so sorry that we didn’t return your email; it must be a problem with the website.” Indeed, it was a huge problem with the website and not the first or the last. Later, I would end up hiring my bestie and media/website guru Kristen of Elephant Media PDX to create the gorgeous website that exists today.
I had landed my first corporate gig. It was scheduled the following month for a group of 25 people at the Embassy Suites. The group of soon-to-be students was a consulting firm visiting from Seattle. She asked me for a contract. She asked me for my W-9, a copy of my insurance, and a liability waiver. She wanted all the yoga props brought to the site; I didn’t have any of it. I was, more or less, completely unprepared.
This yoga class wasn’t just a class, it was a legal agreement. This class marked the beginning of my reputation and my first big lesson in business. You have to come through with the product. Sitting there in my robe, I had my first full-blown, cold sweat panic attack. I called my best friend Kristen, who was not yet employed through me. With her help, I got through my first corporate class. She helped me develop my first yoga business contract, a liability waiver, and edited my email exchanges. I created a wholesale account with Prana that day and happily learned that an EIN number can get you deals! My first gig paid for all the equipment I would need for the next two years.
In that first year of Yoga to You, I promoted myself via word of mouth. I would ask the people I waited tables on if they wanted to do private yoga with me. I asked my neighbors, my friends, and even taught free classes at community centers to get the word out. During those first couple of years, I would teach anywhere, anytime for less than half of what most teachers asked for private yoga. Looking back now over the last 5 years, here are the top four lessons I have learned about the reality of teaching yoga full-time.
Lesson 1: You’ll never grow your business without spending money.
Anyone can think about starting a business. However, to really do it, you have to be willing to make the gamble that it might not work out. For me, I saw only two options in front of me. Option 1: I would work for someone else my entire life...let another person decide my time, my value, and my schedule. I would spend less initially, but my freedom and creativity would be dictated by another. Option 2: I could spend all my money with the very plausible chance that I would be in debt forever, but I would be my own boss.
Obviously, I chose option 2: the gamble. For me, the regret over the “what if” was not worth any amount of savings.
Lesson 2: The business owner cannot wear all the hats.
Find your strengths and stick to those; don’t try to learn new tricks. Pay someone else who has the strengths that you do not. One of the most beneficial lessons I learned during the evolution of Yoga to You was that I promote myself on social media, create ads for marketing, set up scheduling software, and manage my website. Looking back, the idea that I even tried shows me how naive I was. When I asked Kristen to become my program manager, it was like the other half of my business came to life. She had all of these ideas and concepts of how to grow my business. She is the one who helped me understand the concept of a brand; I had no idea what that meant or how it was important in the larger picture. Recruit and surround yourself with people who love you, support your business, and can offer a different perspective...people who can challenge your thoughts in a healthy way. One way to never go anywhere is to think that your ideas are always the best ideas. In fact, I usually found that they are not. I look back on some of the crazy ideas I’ve thrown at Kristen over the years; she would always kindly and gently talk me off the ledge of financial ruin.
Lesson 3: Money money money.
At the center of your success is a system that you will need to create in order to guarantee the number or figure you will ultimately need to thrive. As a business owner, it’s important to remind yourself that you have no retirement, no health insurance, and no benefits included in your small business. You must provide all of these things to yourself and add it into the overall cost of your services. Additionally, you must factor in your business insurance, the materials you need to run your business, the cost of labor and/or your contracted employees, emergency funds, and (finally) the amount that you just need to pay your bills. Also...savings. First, you figure out how much you need to earn in order to cover all the financial needs under your umbrella and then you decide how many classes you can physically teach weekly/monthly. This calculation will inform the number that you set as your rate for classes. It will also tell you how many classes per week you need to teach or run.
Lesson 4: Find your niche.
Creating a good business is all about seeing a gap in the industry...finding the need that is not being met. This is how I came up with Yoga to You. I noticed that there was a desire for mobile yoga classes, a business that would bring yoga to your home, business, etc. When I searched for this type of business, I could only find a few random teachers in the area...no actual businesses that provided this service as their main focus. I am happy to say that I’m presently working full-time as a yoga teacher and owner of a mobile yoga business and small boutique studio. While I won’t lay out my exact system, I will say that I am teaching 5 days a week and the interest is only growing. I credit this success to two things. #1) Yoga to You has a gorgeous presence online and on social media. #2) We give our ALL to our product. We provide the quickest response times, the most personalized attention, and the utmost care to our clients. We do this because we care about our product and love our community. At the center of our business is the passion to teach this healing movement called yoga.
Written by Lauren Fields,
E-RYT 500 and owner of Yoga to You PDX
