Whether you’ve recently attended yoga classes and become a massive fan or you’ve taught classes for years, the idea of opening your own studio can seem very appealing. It’s a profitable business model because yoga is popular with millions of people. Plus, it’s a fun business for someone who loves yoga; you get to make a living by doing what you love. Of course, a love for yoga isn’t enough to create a successful business. Even if you’ve been a professional for years, you need an entrepreneurial mindset to create and run your own studio. Here’s some advice on creating a strong business plan.
Get certified.
If you’re already a qualified yoga teacher then you can skip this point, but it’s vital that you get certified if you want to teach in your own studio. It’s really important for the quality of your classes and for the safety of your students that you don’t start teaching yoga until you are certified to do so. If you are already certified to teach, consider taking an additional training and being a life-long learner in the industry.
Create a team.
Whether you were a yoga teacher or simply a yoga student before you started this business, you’re probably going to need some help to make this a reality. Starting your own yoga business is different to simply being a yoga teacher who runs a class at an existing studio. You probably want to open your own studio, ideally. And if you want to be more than a solo freelance teacher then you’ll need to be able to offer multiple classes every day. In order to make that happen, you’re probably going to have to hire a team of yoga instructors who can help you to cover numerous sessions for a high number of students (customers). You need to give yourself room to grow.
Of course, your business image depends on the quality of the people you hire. You might be an experienced yoga teacher, but that won’t matter if you hire sub-par teachers. Every “employee” in your business affects your overall brand. You might even want to consider looking into a specialist that can provide pre-employment background checks on all the potential candidates you interview for the role. It’s important that you give yourself an edge on the competition by hiring the most professional people for the role. Getting the recruitment process right is crucial to the success of your business. If you deliver professional classes then student numbers will grow quickly.
Build your client base.
This needs to be your absolute priority. Get as many clients (or students) interested in your yoga studio as quickly as possible. There are overhead costs with running a business such as this (i.e. buying the studio and paying energy bills), so it’s important to get a profit coming in straight away. Luckily, yoga is extremely popular; you won’t have to do much to sell people on the idea of yoga because the target market is already out there. But you will have to prove to potential students that your yoga studio is the best in the area. That’s why it’s important to get good Yelp and Google reviews for your brand new business. When people are searching for “yoga studios” in their area, they’ll check the reviews for the results that show up. You need to work hard to impress your first few students to get amazing reviews and build your client base from there.
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