5 ways to find new local yoga students and build community

Transcript

one of the most common questions that new yoga teachers will ask is how do I get new students into my classes and I want to answer this more about how do we build a community around us and this is relevant to you if you are new to a community let's say you've moved across the country or to a different location or for those of you who haven't yet put yourself out there in the way that you want to in your current Community or your town or your city not online although I do teach a lot about online online yoga online business that's kind of what I do I'm an online yoga business coach for people who are starting up in the online space however today I'm talking about in-person communities so let's get to that I lived in a city for 10 and a half years and in that time I taught four or five years of group yoga classes Fitness classes and I jumped around from Studio to Studio to gym to gym taking any and all opportunities to grow myself as a yoga teacher I was leading Workshop shops I was leading yoga teacher trainings I had a great friend group and that was all easy because it was something that just took a lot of time and I met new people who introduced me to other people and then it was 2018 about five years ago I up and moved across the country I quit everything left it all behind friends and family gone except through you know phone calls and the internet and I moved into a small town on the peninsula of Washington so I went from Fargo North Dakota which is a great Community by the way a great great little city to the peninsula of Washington west of Seattle and not really knowing anybody no friends no family what do you do so here I have five tips to Growing your community which in turn can help you to find new students for your classes and people to work with the first thing I did was I looked for local events I chose a town or community that I wanted to get to know and I went to Facebook and I looked at the events happen happening in that town and I said what events are there I'm gonna check it out and so I went to Facebook or you can use something like the Meetup app or next door there's a lot of apps out there that are kind of like Community or local so look for those so I looked at Facebook looked at some events happening and I made a list of what was out there and I actually got lucky and I found this event that was awesome it was a Communications game Gathering so people would get together and like work on your communication and get to know each other and I attended that I attended the first one that they had put on and it became a weekly thing and I would go as frequently as I could and this was so great because I actually am still friends with some of the people that I met in the first early days of going to that event and some of those the people that joined also attended my yoga teacher training years down the road maybe there's like an arts and craft thing or maybe it's a knitting club or you know it could be like wine tasting you you never know but whatever it is look for local event and put yourself out there as uncomfortable as it is this is going to be the best way to meet people even if you go alone and I went alone to a lot of events so it's something that I just knew it would be uncomfortable I would feel awkward I mean and if you don't like it you never have to go back so not a big deal but events is what I chose to do first of all was look for local events I ended up doing some like local dance events and and then I did find some yoga classes or some events at some like Wineries and stuff which were really great number two if you're a yoga teacher go to yoga classes that's a kind of an obvious one is find yoga studios and try them all if you can Google search the town and Yogi classes and then go to some yoga classes or events and the tips with this though the main thing is that you want to make sure that you arrive a little bit early and stay a little late don't be like super early or ar try to stay super super late because that's not nice so not too early not too late but like 10 15 minutes try to arrive a little earlier and not be rushing in the door because you want that time before class and after class to maybe talk to some people to maybe say something and this was such a great time to talk to this the teacher the studio teacher or the owner maybe or even just the students that are getting uh getting ready to come to class too because in yoga class once you're there you're not going to be talking and getting to know people but in the few special minutes before class and after class you can talk to people and that's actually how I got some of my subbing jobs at yoga studios I was talking to someone when we were putting on our shoes and the studio owner heard me saying oh you're a yoga teacher oh well we we need more teachers are you interested in subbing or the other Studio I ended up teaching for um I was walking out the door and I overheard the manager to the owner saying we don't have anyone to sub the Saturday class we're going to have to cancel and I'm like hey now I've attended that class like five weeks in a row now I can teach it and they're like yeah let's put you on and I ended up subbing the class so so there's a lot of ways that you can get opportunities to teach but also just to get to know the people who are like-minded so that's at different yoga studios so find yoga studios attend the classes be part of the community see if it's some somewhere that you want to get more into or if it might not be your style so check it out and don't just judge it off of one class definitely go to at least three or four at the same Studio because you don't know what your life is bringing you when it's just a one-time thing so if you go to a class and you're not feeling that great it might kind of skew your judgment about it and I want you to get more of a big General overview of Studios by going like three or four times at least so do their like week trial or two week trial whatever it is do their trial 30 days for 30 dollars or three weeks for twenty dollars whatever their intro is make sure to at least do that and take full advantage of it number three for finding Community when you move is much like joining a yoga class but this time joining a gym or a bigger facility that may have yoga but they also have other things going on so for me here it was joining the local YMCA and the YMCA has like the walking Track and the swimming pool and group classes and a lot of things but it's a lot more General and you may end up teaching a yoga class there that would be great um and just so you know gyms and places like that don't pay a lot as far as an hourly rate but the benefit you get from networking and who you can put yourself in front of can far outweigh what you get paid so just know that um I ended up teaching a 45 minute class once a week and from that people actually would take my workshops later on some of them signed up for my teacher training and in some one-on-one conversations after class not during class but like after class they'd ask where else do you teach yoga or do you do any other classes so as I got to know them in the gym setting we'd have conversations outside of class and a lot of my friends a lot of my people who took my trainings came from the gym came from the YMCA and same with the events that I did from tip number one is going to events a lot of them become really good friends of mine and a lot of some of them also took my classes and it's just like a win-win it just takes some time and the fourth way that you can find people for your yoga classes or build your community around you is to frequent the local places like coffee shops coffee shops are awesome I love going to coffee shops or maybe it's a brewery breweries for you coffee shops for me or somewhere where you can sit and and just be have a drink have a snack that kind of thing you're going to end up meeting people in that vicinity in that area in that environment that you might otherwise never have come across coffee shops and breweries are great and the tip for this one actually is to get to know the servers or the Baristas get to know them because they're the people who see everybody else so if you get to know them if you're like me you're just talking their ears off I know that some of them probably are annoyed by me but I like to talk to them because getting to know the Baristas the servers and even the owners if they're there if you you happen to have a conversation and talk about you as a yoga teacher or what you do they also talk to a bunch of people who are in their customers and clients and may be able to refer you and that's a great like networking opportunity it's a great collaboration opportunity that could come from that you never know if you could you know teach yoga at the coffee shop or the brewery but also they get to know you then they can pass the word along to others and it just grows from there so get to know the Baristas servers owners of coffee shops and breweries but along with that the fifth one is just business owners in general so if you are in like a small town community like I am there's this little downtown area where there are shops that a lot of times the owners work in so I know some of the owners at some of these like little bookshops and little trinket shops and they are so fun because you as a yoga teacher if you're venturing out on your own you are also an entrepreneur you are also a small business owner so number one you can learn from these people you can ask their advice as you venture out but they also know the community and they are also able to refer you to other people or just having you in mind they that conversation just kind of spreads so get to know small business owners go in and talk to the people at the counter at the desk or the the checkout area again it's going to be kind of uncomfortable but for me that's been the best way go to these places shop in the little shops and get to know the people at the checkout counter and if you can the small business owners if you're looking for an in-person Community that's how it's done go to events join yoga studios join a gym frequent the coffee shops and oftentimes do it at the same time every day so you become a regular and getting to know business owners so that to me is the the five ways that you can build an in-person Community when you move or as as you want to start to grow into the place that you're living so you've got to put yourself out there got to get uncomfortable and start conversations even if you're nervous even if you feel like you're gonna fumble over your words that's how you build in-person community I hope that was helpful if you have any other tips or if there are ways that you built your community make sure to leave comments so others can benefit from that remember you want to be serving and helping and showing up wherever you can so if you're trying to build an online community helped with commenting comment below leave a comment share it's all about showing up and being consistent for more business tips and tricks I'm reading my notes see sometimes you've got to have notes for more business tips and tricks make sure to check out my webinar on growing your yoga business and I can help you out and you can also learn how to work with me go to ashesyoga.com or ashesyoga.com register and you can register for that latest training of mine and that's all I have to say so good luck and see you next time