Leading a yoga retreat is a great way to boost your business, make a little more money and get deeper into the practice with your clients. Of course, if you haven’t been responsible for running one before, it can be pretty difficult to know where to start and what to do. That’s why I’ve put together this very brief guide to help you get to grips with the basics…

Think About Your Dream Yoga Experience

Before you do anything else., take some time to visualize your ideal yoga retreat experience. Where do you want it to be? What food would you like to eat? What would your ideal schedule of classes be like? Chances are your idea of a great retreat would resonate with many of the people you teach too, and it will give you a good starting point.

Choose the Location Carefully

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A lot of people think they need to rent retreat centres in Goa or book a hotel by the beach in Thailand to hold a great yoga retreat, and this can be good if your client-base is affluent and you know they would likely be up for traveling. However, it is not necessary and renting something like a construction tent and having it in a local park (with permission), the grounds of a nearby hotel or somewhere similarly serene could be just as good and far more affordable for many people.

Have a Budget & Do the Math

Unless you’re holding the retreat on your own property, you’re probably going to have to pay a deposit for the hire of the venue and it will almost certainly be non-refundable. Then there will be advertising costs and your own fee to think about on top of that. How much do you want to earn? You need to add that amount to the venue hire, any extras such as food and massage you’re providing, etc., to ensure that you actually make a profit for your business. Ideally, you should take deposits from clients who plan to attend to cover the non-refundable deposit too.

Plan Your Classes

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Now for the fun part: planning your classes. People who attend yoga retreats expect to get a far deeper level of teaching than they get in the average class, so you’re going to want to pull out all of the stops. It’s never a bad idea to think back to your yoga teacher training and think about what you were taught, which classes were most valuable and what is most enjoyable.You may want to add extras such as meditation classes, massage therapy, etc. to make things even more exciting.

Market, Market, Market

Marketing yoga retreats when you’re a yoga teacher can be pretty easy because you already have a class full of clients you can get excited about the event, but you should not be complacent. You should still post on social media, create flyers, guest post on other yoga/spiritual blogs and do whatever you can to let as many people know about it as you can.

Here’s to an amazing retreat!

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