YOGA BUSINESS: Teaching at Yoga Studios vs. Teaching Independently

Transcript

what's going on fam it's your girl Abiola 
Akanni here with a new youtube video welcome back fam i hope this video finds you 
in good spirits today we're going to be doing a   yoga biz video which is going to be exploring more 
about the business of yoga for those of my friends   out there who are yoga educators, instructors or 
wellness practitioners so the question that we're   going to be exploring today is whether or not to 
teach in a studio versus teaching independently   and how to begin to make that decision when you 
are becoming a yoga instructor or when you're   getting your certification if you're just joining 
me on my channel i hope to continue to support you   on your yoga journey with non-performative 
yoga videos that support your body   if you are a yoga educator or a teacher looking 
for more business development and education to   support your trajectory as an instructor i hope 
this platform will help you as well either way   whichever path you were entering on go ahead 
and give this video a thumbs up and hit that button so you never miss a video and 
join the fam so let's go ahead and get started   so the question posed recently by one of my 
past YTT (yoga teacher training) graduates was   specifically what they need to know about teaching 
in a studio versus teaching independently that's a   really unique question and it's more emblematic of 
where you are trying to go on your yoga journey as   an instructor now the first thing you want to get 
clear on in order to better answer this question   for yourself is are you looking to teach and build 
a career as a teacher or are you looking for your   yoga journey to support your personal practice 
some folks take their 200 hour certification and   end up not teaching at all they're just 
utilizing their learnings from the YTT to   support their personal practice they already 
have full-time jobs and others are looking to   cultivate space for different communities and 
are looking to build out a career in the practice   space now i'll just go ahead and tell you a 
little bit about my background and what i did   before i go into these defining characteristics 
that make teaching in a studio and teaching   independently very different when i first 
started teaching i taught at a studio first   i gained invaluable experience teaching at a 
studio because i was able to take as many classes   as my heart desired for my personal practice to 
gain confidence and also to take classes from a   myriad of instructors who i really admired and i 
could learn from and i did that for several years   and that was very beneficial for me even though 
my classes didn't really grow in studios which   is ultimately why i ventured out to cultivating 
my own spaces i gained so much of my personal   practice i gained confidence in transitioning 
and cueing to support different bodies i gained   confidence and understanding creative sequencing 
that felt intuitive to the body and also gain   one-on-one mentorship as i got the opportunity 
to work with instructors who are really really   admired and really respected teaching at studios 
is going to help you either way and i suggest all   new instructors if you are looking to cultivate 
a career and to serve larger populations as an   instructor i highly recommend teaching at 
a studio now i ended up leaving the studio   several years after teaching at studios because 
my classes weren't growing and i wasn't finding   the community that i really wanted to serve and so 
i realized i had to go out and create it so i did   end up going the independent route and that comes 
with a whole myriad of tasks that you don't expect   and that you don't consider when you're working 
for studios because you don't have to when you   move into working and teaching independently 
you move into the small business owner territory   and that's something that you have to really be 
mindful of because there's a lot of things that   you don't realize studios do for you that you are 
now going to be doing on your own for yourself   so let's get into what some of that will look like 
the number one thing to consider when teaching   at a studio versus teaching independently 
is marketing and building an audience when   you're teaching at a studio the studio already 
has its marketing dollars going out there to   bring in new students with different programs they 
have a whole marketing campaign email campaigns   whether that be online or that be in newspapers or 
magazines or things that are going out in the mail   they have a whole budget that is allotted 
to marketing and getting in new audiences   they also have the ability to be a brick and 
mortar and invite people in when you are teaching   independently marketing and building an audience 
is going to be your sole responsibility and you're   going to have to quickly take that learning curve 
and start to learn how to begin to do that how   do i build an audience how do i begin to market 
myself and what makes me different from someone   else who looks just like me and offers something 
very similar so you have to begin to define   what sets yourself apart from people who could be 
perceived as competitors or people who are in your   similar market and how to get your offerings out 
there in front of the eyeballs that you want to   attract those are two big differences when you are 
teaching in a studio versus teaching independently   the second thing to consider when you're 
teaching in studio versus teaching independently   is a studio has a brick and mortar a physical 
space that people are walking by every single day   which is drawing in new audiences just by being 
a physical entity now when you're teaching   independently because you don't have a physical 
space that you own you're going to need to look   into renting spaces and looking into spaces that 
you can afford spaces that are easily visible   that will draw in the audiences that you want that 
have ample parking and all these types of things   you want to start to think about when looking 
for rentals to host your classes in this is   what i initially did when i went rogue several 
years ago and started teaching independently   i found a local capoeira studio in my neighborhood 
and set up a meeting with the owner and that's   actually where i started to host a lot of my 
classes i would host them in that capoeira studio   the rent was fairly reasonable for me we were able 
to work something out we were both people of color   and i was able to teach there for a considerable 
amount of time so you want to start to look into   rentals especially if you're teaching in 
person when things are starting to open   teaching in person provides such a great 
one-on-one experience for your students and   students are starting to crave that again after 
being virtual for so long so you want to consider   if you're teaching at a studio versus teaching 
independently do i want to have a brick and mortar   space that i can just travel to and teach at or do 
i want to look into rentals and starting to take   that responsibility on by myself that covers 
insurance that you're going to need to have   paying rent and additional rent every single 
month to host the space platforms to host your   classes so people can sign in or can pay and book 
classes those are all things you want to consider   under the umbrella of brick and mortar 
versus rental when you are with a studio   versus going and teaching independently number 
three kind of goes adjacent to number two and   that's in person versus virtual a lot of physical 
yoga studios did go virtual during the panini   however they are starting to open back up 
and that gives them leverage they have the   ability to be a brick and mortar and they can now 
teach virtually or have virtual setups as well   now when you are teaching independently you 
have to consider am i going to teach virtually   or am i going to teach in person or am i 
going to try to take on the task of doing both   remember you are usually going to be just one 
person doing many jobs so teaching independently   renting out a space and then also trying to set 
something up so you're teaching virtually as well   so that class is virtual getting permission to 
be able to film students and things like that   all of that has to come into the conversation 
and you have to consider when you are teaching   independently so maybe starting to define if you 
want to teach in person and find one rental versus   teaching virtual and setting yourself up there you 
want to begin to define that if you're teaching   independently so number four when considering 
teaching in a studio versus teaching independently   is basically tax identification when you are 
teaching for studio you are coming on as an   independent contractor so you don't fill out a w-2 
you fill out a w-9 and you get something called a   1099 form at the end of the tax year and you are 
expected to pay those taxes on your own when you   are going the independent route you are still a 
contractor but you are also now a small business   so that requires registering your business 
whether you are a sole proprietor or an llc   and getting a tax id number getting an employee 
identification number so you're no longer giving   out your social security card on these contractor 
forms you want to make sure that you are   registered as a business if you have a certain 
name that's fairly catchy and there's other people   in your arena who are doing similar things you 
want to get that trademarked and these are all   the things you want to start to get organized with 
when you're moving from just teaching at a studio   and a lot of that stuff is done for you versus 
teaching independently as your own small business   budgeting and accounting when you're teaching 
at a studio the budgeting and the accounting   the business expenses all that are done for you 
when you are teaching independently you have to   start to take into account the expenses that 
are going out and the earnings that are coming   in so you need to be keeping track of all the 
budgeting and the accounting that's happening so   meaning you need to possibly create a budget for 
the month especially if you have rentals and all   these other things and all these other business 
expenses tax write-offs start to get involved what   can you write off and things like that and then 
accounting how are you making sure that you are   recording all of these numbers 
and keeping them somewhere   safe and maybe bringing on an accountant 
that you work with every single month   or annually at the end of the year that can help 
you do all of these things when you're in a studio   a lot of that's done for you you just fill 
out your w-9 form in the beginning of the year   or just fill it out one time you give it to 
the studio they send you a 1099 you collect   all your 1099s as an independent contractor 
at the end of the year however when you are   when you are working independently or teaching 
independently there's a lot more documents and   budgeting and expenses and earnings that have 
to be tracked and accounted for when it comes   time to do those taxes and most of the time 
you're actually paying taxes back like you   owe the government money most of the time at the 
end of the year as opposed to getting money back   which is a big difference in teaching for a studio 
versus working independently as a small business   thing you want to consider which actually goes 
with what i said about marketing and building an   audience is identifying your target demographic 
versus serving your studio's list so what i mean   by list is your studio's email list every studio 
has a large full email list where they are able   to market their offerings to and usually that 
email list is targeted based on the demographic   that that studio is trying to serve now if you are 
working independently you need to begin to figure   out who your target demographic is so that you 
can start to market to that group and offerings   that make sense to them that they have a desire 
for that they are interested in and this can be   harder than you think to start to do because 
you start to realize there's a lot of people in   the space who are doing similar things than you 
so it's about what makes your offerings unique   and different in comparison to someone else so 
identifying your target demographic is not just   like hey i want to serve these people but 
more so finding out what those people want   and beginning to identify their needs 
and how your offering serves their needs   a studio already has a list where they already 
have their target demographic in mind and they've   already done that work for you so when you come in 
and teach the target demographic is already coming   in you're serving a list that's already been 
built versus when you're teaching independently   you are starting from zero and you are creating 
a list that hasn't been built and beginning to   identify the needs of a target demographic that 
you might not necessarily know anything about   so these are the things to really consider when 
teaching in a studio versus teaching independently   this is one thing that i need to say 
before we move on is that you are the asset   studios cannot exist without instructors and so 
this is something i'm continuing to learn as well   now that i've gone the independent route and i 
constantly have to remind myself as an independent   yoga instructor and educator you are the asset 
so know that you are the prize in this instance   and continue to consider your worth you don't 
have to be at a studio you can go straight   into going independently and find and learn 
your way so continue to remember that first i   love that i chose teaching independently i 
also love and am so thankful that i first   started teaching in a studio to really see and 
understand the makings of things and really learning if teaching independently was something 
that i wanted and really identified that the   target demographic that i really wanted to 
serve was not in the studio spaces that i   was teaching at especially living here in 
Seattle Washington i will say that teaching   independently and moving into the space of a 
small business owner requires a mindset shift   that you gotta be ready for and that you've 
got to be prepared to take on in addition to   earning a living and supporting yourself to make 
sure that your needs are financially met at the   end of every month there were times where i went 
three months with eviction notices at my door   when i went in the independent route 
because i just was not bringing in enough   there were times where that happened when i was at 
studios also because i wasn't bringing in enough   students get those bonuses that you start to get 
when you go over a certain number of students so   i experienced challenge on both ends and those are 
things that you really want to start to look at   i hope this video was helpful for y'all 
go ahead and put your comments down below   and if there's any questions you have you can 
share those as well or if there's other videos   you'd like me to create when it comes to 
yoga biz development let me know in the   comments as well i'll see you all real soon 
with a new video and continue to be well!