Want to Open a Yoga Studio? Watch this first.

Transcript

you can teach your trainees the first thing they often ask me is hey how can I open my own studio the first thing I always say is a word of warning opening a studio has almost nothing to do with yoga teaching I opened my first yoga studio in 2006 I had been teaching for a couple of years very full time like 15 to 21 classes a week and I thought hey the next step is I need my own studio and this would be a great place for me to go deeper as a teacher here's what happens when you open a studio you spend about 90% of your time on management operations accounting cleaning mats organizing scheduling is a nightmare in yoga studios and very little time teaching in my first studio I used to teach two or three classes per week that's all I could manage and even those classes were very difficult so the first thing you need to know if you'll open a studio you stopped teaching which for most people is a deal-killer number two thing you need to keep in mind is studios are expensive people look around at the studio there's my studio they look around and they see hardwood floors begin to your room must be cheap it's not cheap at all it costs about as much as to open a restaurant or a salon or anything else to give you a rough rule of thumb a little studio like this might cost you a couple hundred thousand dollars just to get open so it's a big big investment and a big risk it often takes three five seven ten years to get back to zero with all of those caveats out of the way if you're still want to open a studio absolutely do it cautiously like any business it's high risk in any local market whether it's restaurant or hair salon or yoga studio typically if five of them open within five years four of them will be out of business this is just small business statistics so it's high risk I say all this as a studio owner I've now been in the studio business since 2006 on and off I currently owns three studios and I'm glad I did but I wish I had gone into it with my eyes open because I suffered a lot along the way thinking that I was doing something wrong thinking that I was bad at business and the reality is to do pretty well as a yoga studio owner you have to be really really good at business so a couple of things to think about the other thing I always tell people is what's your real goal if your goal is to teach more to have a platform to have a stage to have a place where you can exhibit you don't need to open your own studio the best analogy I always give people is let's say your a musician you're a singer-songwriter and you play guitar and you sing songs you don't need to go buy a concert venue you just need to go around playing if you're a yoga teacher just play your set there are yoga studios all over the world that are super happy to host you you don't need to worry about if the plumbing works in the bathroom which as I was a constant issue or if the lights are working or the the roof is leaky you can go play your songs teach your class without all of that hassle so make sure it's the right decision if you have other questions about studio ownership feel free to get in touch