This week on the podcast I am joined by Mado Hesselink. Mado is a yoga teacher, a mother, a yoga business coach, and the host and founder of the Yoga Teacher Resource podcast. I had the pleasure of being a guest on Mado’s podcast a couple of months ago, and she is a delight to talk to. Her and I very much have similar beliefs when it comes to the yoga industry, and I’m excited to share this episode where we’re talking about how to change the yoga industry from the inside out.

What does that mean? It means that as yoga teachers, we think about how we have to teach in yoga studios and there aren’t other options for us, but on this episode Mado shares how we can become more empowered as yoga teachers to be entrepreneurs. We can be selective about where we teach, how we spend our time, and start making more money by offering our teachings outside of the studio space and in other areas of the community.

We also talk about business lessons for yoga teachers, what Mado has learned through her career, and more!

Enjoy!  Business Lessons in this Episode:

• It’s very hard to make a living only teaching yoga in the studio model. There are lots of other ways to practice your craft to support yourself and find fulfillment.
• When you start teaching yoga and want to expand your offerings, you should think about who your ideal students are first. Think about what type of person are you best positioned and most excited about sharing yoga with. Understanding the people you want to attract to work with is the first step to creating a business that serves them.
• To find the students that you want to focus your teaching towards, think about the students that you feel the most excited about teaching. The students in your classes who you feel most energized when teaching.
  • Once you’ve centered in on a type of person you want to focus on teaching, find opportunities to have conversations with them. Tell them that you’re looking for ways to attract more students like them and ask if they have some time to go for coffee to answer a few questions.
  • When you talk, try to find out what the problem yoga solves for them is. What keeps them coming back and what words do they use to describe it?
  • Then create classes, workshops, and other programming that meets the needs of the people in the group.
• To tell if your yoga business is working you need to track your results. Using a simple spreadsheet to track the classes you’re teaching, the amount of people that are coming, and details about how classes went can give you valuable information to learn from.
• Instead of only working in the studio model, take a more proactive approach to finding potential students. Think about other opportunities to reach potential students. The place to start is thinking about the types of places you could meet more of your ideal students, and the potential students already in your network.
• Honing in on how you help people with yoga, helps you find opportunities and helps opportunities find you. For example, if you present yourself as someone who helps master gardeners gain mobility with yoga, if someone in your network knows someone who is a gardener and struggling with pain they will be a lot more likely to recommend you. 
• A rough price estimate for what to charge for a yoga class would be to find out what a massage treatment costs in your market (city/town) and divide it in half. As you get more experience and niche down you can charge a lot more.
• As a new yoga teaching, having mentors and allies to support you is very valuable. Whether you are building relationships with more experienced teachers or hiring a coach, having someone with experience and perspective helps a lot.
• And much more… Here’s the episode!

Connect with Mado:

Yoga Teacher Resource Podcast

Instagram

Sales for Yoga Teachers – my guest episode on the Yoga Teacher Resource podcast

Want to join me on a tropical adventure in Costa Rica this fall? Meghan Pherrill and I are co-leading a retreat for yoga teachers at the beautiful Bodhi Tree Yoga Resort November 2-9, 2019 and we’d love for you to join us.

Learn more here!

I am super excited to announce a new partnership with Schedulicity! Schedulicity is an online booking software that allows you to do everything from booking clients, to taking payments, to communicating with your clients. I personally love Schedulicity because I can do all of my bookings through one easy platform. This week’s Schedulicity hot tip of the week is with Jaime!

If you’ve been wondering how an online schedule can help you with your business, email Schedulicity at support@schedulicity.com or visit schedulicity.com for a chat with one of their support rockstars!

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