If you’re a yoga teacher trying to run your business, the chances are you often come across the issue
on a monthly basis of having the uncertainty around how you’ve done that particular month.
The long-term success of any business depends on having some level of visibility over the monthly
earnings. In other words, you should know as a minimum how much revenue you will make in a month.
Many people have a business but it’s not sustainable.

The problem with many yoga businesses is that they’re more ‘projects’ than businesses. I say this
because they are not sustainable in any way. For such businesses all it takes is an unexpected cost in
one month to shut the business down.

Even if this doesn’t entirely shut a business down, at a minimum it can have the impact of creating a lot
of uncertainty for you and the people reliant on you; students, employees, partners, and family
members.

This clearly isn’t a good place to be and can massively undermine your confidence. The problem is
that its not that you’re a bad business person – more that you haven’t been advised correctly on how
to set up your business for long-term success. It takes more than setting up a website and Instagram
account to succeed with a yoga business.

Building a sustainable yoga business

So how do you go about building a business where you have some certainty of income from month to
month?

Well there are a number of things you need to keep in mind to help build a sustainable yoga business.

The first step is to ensure that your business doesn’t rely on one source of income only. The obvious
danger with this is that it maximizes the chances of wiping out your business with unforeseen events
when sometimes all a business needs is extra time in order to get things back on track.

By having a number of income sources, even if one of your income sources takes a hit in one month,
other products or services you sell can buy you time to allow you to get things back on track.

I’ve worked with yoga teachers who have students who attend their weekly classes but who may be a
little temperamental because, lets face it, it’s difficult to build a strong rapport or relationship with a
large class quickly. What these teachers also do though is they maintain a limited number of private
yoga clients with whom they can build a relationship and gain loyalty and who will provide reliable
weekly and monthly income.

Further to this, I know of yoga teachers who sell online resources to a wider and possibly different
audience. This could be eBooks or courses to other yoga teachers or students of yoga based on their
area of expertise.

Once set up you can sell the product time and time again and only need to focus efforts on a monthly
basis to ensure your sales funnel is optimized (i.e. that you continue introducing new prospects to your
offerings).

You’ll be surprised as to the impact this can have on your business but you need to understand that
setting up the proposition at the outset will require some time and effort.
These are only a few ideas and clearly the applicability of these will vary depending on your personal
and professional circumstances.

Focus on one source that provides visibility

Once you’ve got a suitable mix of revenue sources, it’s necessary to identify the one that you will focus
on in order to maximize visibility of earnings.

The decision on the income source you focus on depends on you but it would clearly make sense to
give preference to that income source that is substantial enough, and already predictable enough for
you to strengthen further.

I’ve found with yoga businesses I’ve worked with that this is not always the most obvious. Many people
may think that their classes will provide this certainty of income but could be wrong. There’s always
some level of seasonality to yoga studios. What happens when people are on holiday over the
Christmas break or over the summer holidays? What happens when you’re on holiday? This could be
the same with your teacher trainings or retreats.

Remember, you’re looking for income that can be maintained every month irrespective of if you’re on
holiday or ill or otherwise occupied.

Reduce churn and top up the funnel

Once identified, there are two things you need to think about.

First is to reduce the level of churn for that revenue stream. In other words, how do you stop or limit
the number of customers that leave that category? If the revenue source you focus on is your weekly
classes then running a survey with students on a regular basis to understand how students are feeling
(as well as chatting to them) will give you immense insight into what’s working and what’s not. You can
use this to help reduce churn.

Secondly, you need to focus on bringing new customers into the funnel for that revenue stream. That
is, you need to ensure that you can replace and replenish the revenue source with new customers on
a routine basis. The chances are you will know how to do that given you have already got customers.
Much of what happens in yoga business is based on word of mouth (at least for the face to face
customers) and so ensuring you reduce churn by listening to your customers will also help to bring in
new customers who hear what you’ve done. Testimonials for any online products can also help in this
regard.

A sustainable strategy

By focusing on these actions you can develop a very powerful strategy for your business overall that is
predicated on spending time, money and effort on those areas that can help you build a sustainable
business for the long-term. This also prevents you from wasting time on activities that don’t really
move the needle for you.

Tallat Mahmood is a keen yoga enthusiast and helps yoga teachers grow their business so they have a diversified income source, and are sustainable in nature. You can learn more about him and ways to build a sustainable yoga business at Yoga Traffic Academy.