10 things yoga teachers need to know before starting a business

Transcript

today i made a list of the 10 things that i think yoga teachers need to know before starting their own business i'm not necessarily talking to those of you who want to open yoga studios or go the route of owning a building or having a lease or anything like that but those of you who want to become full-time yoga teachers whether it's a side hustle or it is your full-time job if you're considering quitting your full-time job to move into the world of yoga teaching as a business i did that almost 10 years ago now and i've learned a few things along the way and i think these tips or these contemplations will be really helpful helpful for you so my name is ashley welcome i help yoga teachers with exactly that with putting themselves online developing systems and creating a business so that they can earn income and make a bigger impact in the world i work primarily online from home this is my full-time job and there's a lot more to it so let's get into those list of 10 things that i think yoga teachers need to know before they start their own business number one your friends and family may not understand or support what you're doing at first they may not get it i remember being so excited after teacher training i wanted to share with everybody i had this life-changing transformational experience through training i wanted everybody to know how amazing that was now little did i know that sharing an experience like that is is difficult with those who have not experienced something like that so it's hard to explain and it's the same with business if you're very excited about starting up as a yoga teacher and in business you may not get the kind of excitement that you're looking for from your friends and family so my recommendation is to surround yourself with the people who are excited for you who get it people like myself or those that i work with or online friends and family or maybe you have some local yoga teacher friends who also understand and also in your cohort of yoga teacher trainees so you're others who are also graduated with you make sure to surround yourself with others who understand now it doesn't mean your friends and family will never come around it's just that they don't get it keep going on the path and allow your friends and family to have whatever thoughts they want and keep doing what you're doing number two most most startups most new businesses take an average of five years to make a profit meaning most business owners rarely pay themselves in the first five years so don't expect a return on your business or a big profit in the first few months i see this as a common thing as someone wanting to start their yoga business right away low overhead expenses however it still does take some time the money that you're earning initially in your business should oftentimes be reinvested to make your business grow faster grow larger and to enhance the quality of what you're doing so if you do make money on a workshop or um running some online courses or whatever yes you can pay yourself a little bit but i do recommend taking some of that profit and putting it back into your business and that might mean investing in more skills a different set of of training so that you can understand business a little bit more maybe you want to specialize in a yoga path that you're not currently specializing in and so investing in yourself and also the equipment that it takes to run a business you need to keep those in mind yoga business and a lot of business is a long game strategy number three you actually do not need to create an llc a limited liability company or corporation limited limited liability company whatever it stands for you don't need to create an llc or a legal entity right away i didn't do this until i got to the point where i needed it because i was buying a yoga studio so at first you can make your yoga teaching a side hobby or a side business that is very low liability anyway there's not a whole lot of risk involved when it comes to a yoga business if you're working at various studios or you're working from home now the thing that you do need to get is liability insurance protect yourself you'll also want to make sure that you have waivers and disclaimers and anything else that you can do to protect yourself you don't need an llc right away i see this question come up and i just need you to be clear on that now if you do want to make it official it's going to be different from state to state and country to country so make sure that you talk to the appropriate legal representatives tax accountants attorneys and whoever it needs to be another place you can go for great information is your local sbdc which is your small business development center most cities even my small town here has one i remember meeting with someone out of the local library and they gave me some great advice for my local business and what i needed to do to move forward so it's very location based so check out your local sbdc small business development center and they it's a free resource because they want businesses in the area to to thrive of course they want local businesses to succeed it's part of the economy you don't need an llc but they can help you through it same with um attorneys tax advisors that kind of thing so you want to get with those people early number four graduating yoga teacher training rarely prepares you for the world of business rarely so a 200 hour yoga teacher training has this much business training involved and that's a requirement of one hour and they can kind of skirt around that too so that hours typically a conversation on independent contractor versus employee maybe you talk about opening a yoga studio or what that takes uh you probably talk about insurance some legalities as far as music and that kind of things you you might touch on those things you may or may not there's no set things that a yoga teacher training needs to teach you on business they can pretty much share with you whatever they want and call it your business training so an hour is is so so so limited and so if your teacher trainees or your trainers are not well equipped with the world of business they might even be giving you some outdated information on marketing or social media and you don't know it so it's best to find some experts who are in it in real time and get to know them whether or not they are in the yoga industry some of my favorite people to follow on podcasts and and youtube are not yoga teachers but i apply their teachings to the yoga world which is still really really beneficial don't take all your business advice from your teacher training it does not prepare you make sure that you are following others in the business world the online business world or the local business world to gather that information number five running a business costs money unfortunately it's very difficult to not spend money when you're trying to make money as a business there will be expenses and yes you can deduct those expenses from your taxes meaning when you count up all everything you've earned anything that you've spent on your business will not be taxed which is nice ask a tax person that ask a tax advisor this is not legal advice so it does cost a little bit of money to run your business and like i said earlier it's beneficial to you to earn some money and take that money or most of it some of it and put it back into your business so a couple things that i think everybody needs as a yoga teacher whether you're teaching at the park or you're teaching online is a scheduling software a scheduling and booking software where someone can book and pay for your services on the internet uh on a web page and it doesn't have to be a website but just somewhere where someone can go with a click of a button and a link to pay you and book your class now i use some a software called offeringtree which is actually an all-in-one so it's your website scheduling and booking your calendar appointments memberships courses on-demand live video library and email marketing and like all the all the business things that you would need i do have a video where i talk about that a little bit more i'll link it right here so you can see that um i have a video where i'm demonstrating and talking about that a little bit more make sure to watch if you're interested i use offeringtree and any other scheduling software will work but something like that and it's likely going to cost a little bit of money at least typically around fifteen dollars some scheduling booking softwares take a percentage so five percent uh five percent fee or um some of them are a little bit more so offering tree because it's all in one you have the option between 29 and 59 a month the 29 a month gets you pretty much everything that you need minus a couple extra things which are not a big deal you can also get a discount for your first three months so again check out that link the other video that i shared with you i'll also link offeringtree at offeringtree.com ashes is where you'll go for more information beyond that um if you're teaching online i recommend zoom so zoom is 15 a month that way you are insured that you can do meetings longer than 40 minutes you can do classes longer than 40 minutes but you could get away without it you know essentially if you wanted just 30 minute classes so the main thing is some sort of scheduling and book booking software somewhere that people can book you and that's going to be one of your biggest expenses beyond that it's going to be equipment and hardware that you might need so a microphone your phone and you can do a lot on your phone now with marketing with education with you know anything for yoga business so you're gonna need to invest in a couple things i invest sporadically in time so back in 2020 when we were all doing a lot of online stuff i didn't have all this equipment that i have which is still pretty inexpensive but every month or two i would get a new piece of equipment so i got a webcam and then the next month or two i'd get some of the cables for my microphone and then the next month i would get a ring light or a light kit something like that so i invested over time you don't need all the stuff right away to get started but you do need to spend a little bit of money to run a business and i don't think you need to be scared of that price your offerings accordingly make sure you're actually doing the thing that you set out to do which is teach yoga and get students and they should be paying you if you're curious about pricing i also have a video talking all about pricing i think it's even 90 minutes so you can learn a lot more about pricing i'll link that in the description as well and up here so that's my video on pricing so check those out after number six along with that business is a numbers game make sure that you are tracking that's one of the most important things you have to do as a business owner is track the numbers now you don't have to get super specific but you do have to notice the trends and not get upset or take it personal when things go up and down if your income goes up and down it's not about you if there's less people at your classes there's likely other factors that that are dictating that so if you're just getting started out and you're ha you're getting one or two people in your classes each week and you're wondering what is wrong with me that's the wrong question to ask the right question to ask is what is happening or how is it why is this happening with what i'm doing what marketing am i doing what am i not doing how am i inviting people what others what other things can i do you need to be looking at those numbers and factors rather than thinking that it's about you because it's not it takes an average of seven times for someone to see something in order for them to be to want to do it so you have to invite someone seven times they have to see an advertisement seven times before they join so a lot of it is gonna be numbers and how much you're getting yourself out putting yourself out there number seven a fact that i wish wasn't true but it is if you are now a yoga teacher on your own doing your own yoga business you are going to spend a lot more time on a computer than you realize you might think that having a yoga business means that you're teaching yoga a majority of the time that's your full-time job right wrong your full-time job is now business owner it's not yoga teacher it's business owner now if you want to be employed at a few studios and be a yoga teacher you're a yoga teacher but if you're a yoga teacher entrepreneur you own a business you are now a business owner your primary functions are going to be running the business all the back end stuff now i like this stuff i think it's fun marketing advertising tracking bookkeeping analytics all that so you are going to have to be on a computer doing a lot of those things i know there are yoga teachers out there who are not on a computer and business owners who don't use a computer but in this day and age it's going to be important important to keep up with the times one of my tips for for doing this is to notice where you your energy is best served at certain times of day so for me i'm much better doing videos like this midday emails can come later in the day when i'm i don't have to be on but i can it's it's so much easier so notice the energy of the day and when you would be be best for certain tasks being on video making instagram reels making content that involves energy and then there's those tasks like responding to emails and checking the data that can be done at other times of the day so that's one thing that i've been really aware of for my own yoga business is knowing what times of the day that i work best for certain tasks another of my favorite books that i'm going to recommend to you is called the e myth revisited also linked in the description the e-myth revisited is a book about business and about giving great examples about people who start a business because it's their passion and then realize you've got to delegate a few things because you're going to wear a lot of different hats okay so check out that book from your library or you can buy it if you want to okay number eight you're going to have bad days off days you're also going to have really good days you're going to have a span of all the kinds of days it's going to be good it's going to be bad it's going to be okay you need to know that it's okay to have those fluctuations life and business ebbs and flows so what i want you to do is make sure you take one day off per week from your business at least one day when you have a passion or a hobby that becomes your career becomes more of your life right away it might feel like yes i can work 24 7. i'm doing what i love but i promise you that's going to lead you to the fastest path to burnout so make sure that you are taking a day off from teaching a day off from your computer a day off from responding to any messages so you can have that that white space that clear space to just step away for a moment so take one day off per week i know as a new yoga teacher that was hard for me i was teaching all of the days and i would sub all the classes but it didn't do me any services or didn't do me well moving forward so i did have to learn that the hard way and i hope you don't learn it the hard way i hope you actually take this advice and take that one day off per week along with that um taking a day off per week also with personal care and self-care make sure you are sticking to your personal practice your personal practice becomes way more important now that you own a business and now that you're really diving into your passion for for giving to others for being that healer so make sure your personal practice doesn't fall to the wayside when i was doing a lot of teaching full-time a lot of classes i always made sure to do one or two yoga classes at a studio i didn't work at and that just gave me the space to feel like i was doing something for me so i recommend that you do the same number nine we're almost there with business if you are a primary caretaker or you have other obligations in your life your business may grow slower for a time so it's important not to compare yourself to someone who is single living in bali who has 50 to 60 hours a week to work on their business and do what it is they do when you have three kids at home and an aging parents and and all these life things that are thrown at you i'm one of those types of people where right now i'm in more of a season of my life where i'm doing a lot more parenting so my business isn't going to explode and i don't want it to but i see a lot of people who are in similar in this similar industry who are able to work a lot more hours and go much further much faster than i am and i'm okay with that so you have to know that when you have other life things you have to prioritize what is most important to you and for me oftentimes it is family i do still want to run my business but it's not going to grow as fast or as big i'm not taking on lots of partnerships or collaborations or doing these like world traveling things or doing a lot of retreats because that would take me away from my family so i'm focused on my family while also running my business from home and it's growing at a slow and nice and steady pace so no comparisons whatever pace you're growing at is awesome and last number 10 last but not least and there's probably so much more that i want to share with you the more time you have the more time you're probably going to waste so i say that you know being a parent i don't have as much time i actually find i get a lot more done because i only have a certain amount of time i don't have all the free time in the world when i quit my full-time job in 2013 and said i'm gonna work my online business and that's what i'm gonna do i did not have a system or a path to actually do that so i sat at my computer and i remember this i sat at my computer one of the first days after i'd quit my full-time job and i was just like what do i do now i i see my computer i have all this time to work what do i do and it was really an eye-opening moment for me to realize i didn't have a clear path a clear step by step and what i didn't have at the time is coaching or mentorship to help me along this path so along with that i do want to mention i really want you to check out my free masterclass to help you with some of these this process and you can find it at ashesyoga.com register so there's a free master class i'll actually link it down below in case the link changes so if it does make sure you click the link in the pinned comment or in the description for my masterclass which is going to help share with you a little bit more about my journey from full-time employee to full-time yoga teaching locally to full-time online entrepreneur and beyond and also share with you some tips on software and all the things that i just talked about in this list of 10 things thank you for watching i hope this was helpful for you and gave you some um some words of wisdom some tips or some thoughts as you move forward in your own yoga business