Designing your yoga business
Next Steps after YTT
By: Teresa Curlin, C-IAYT, ERYT-500
Congratulations! After hundreds of hours of study and self-reflection, you have become a yoga teacher and now you are ready to start your yoga business. After graduation from your yoga teacher training course, the options you have to move forward are endless. Where should you teach? What should you charge? Who is your target audience? These questions and more can lead to feelings of overwhelm. Your yoga business should feel like an extension of you and fit your needs and goals. To support you in your new journey, here are four questions to help you organize your thoughts and set you up for success:
1. What does it really take to operate the business you want?
If you want to have a yoga business, one traditional option is to teach in a studio, perhaps with private lessons on the side, or even open your own studio. However, this is just one path you may choose to take. You will want to consider the following:
Are you looking at your yoga business to be a full-time job or part-time job?
Is your goal to make a living, to generate a little extra pocket money or simply give back to the community?
How much time do you have to devote to your yoga business?
Do you have the required amount of time, energy and money available to start now?
Teaching group classes can be a lot of fun, and over time you’ll find you’ve created a sangha (community), and students will look forward to coming to your class or studio for the energy you create.Group classes are a wonderful place to gain phenomenal experience and showcase your skills to people who may be interested in your other offerings, such as private lessons or training courses.
However, for every one-hour class you teach, you will also spend time planning the class, talking with students before and after, and traveling to and from the location. Before you know it, a one-hour class turns into two hours. This is important to consider when deciding what your time is worth for each class you teach.
You may want to refer back to the questions above to decide if teaching that group class is right for you at this time.
The good news is that gone are the days when yoga studios were the only opportunities for students to participate in yoga. Options now include online classes, fitness centers, community rooms of neighborhoods, and as a concierge service in high rise condos. In addition to yoga studios and gyms, we are now seeing wellness spaces and clubs that offer a multitude of programs, including yoga. Some of these businesses hire yoga teachers as contractors and supply their services to places such as corporate businesses or senior centers.
2. Who is your competition?
While other yoga teachers can certainly be your competition, they may not be the biggest competitor. Because wellness is such a big business, we see health and wellness studios rolling out new services regularly to keep their offerings fresh. If there is a Pilates class nearby, that Pilates class is your competitor. In addition, your potential students need not leave their home to practice yoga. Online competition for yoga students includes web subscriptions for live or on-demand classes, yoga practice apps, and free YouTube yoga videos.Finally, a quick scan of the online job boards such as Indeed reveals another type of competition - companies serving as a one-stop-shop for supplying yoga teachers and other fitness professionals (either online or in person) to organizations who prefer not to hire and manage their own staff. While these companies could be an opportunity for you, a thorough review of the job duties and pay is in order.
3. What’s the market price for these services?
What is the going pay rate for teaching group classes in your area (including online)? How does the going rate compare to your income requirements? Refer back to your analysis of the actual time you will spend teaching a group class.For example, If the pay rate in your area for teaching a group class is $30 per class, do the calculation of your hourly pay based on your actual time input. If it takes two hours to attend and teach a one hour class for example, how does that match up with your income requirements?
Be sure to spend time researching studios in your area to get a wide variety of pricing examples. Look for teachers, classes and studios that offer something similar to what you want to offer to have a realistic idea of what students are already willing to pay for these services. With these numbers and your other commitments, will your pricing be sustainable and how many classes or events will you need to teach each week to reach your income goals?
4. Will you need to pivot your business for profitability?
Teaching group yoga classes has many benefits and is a lot of fun. But if after your analysis you determine that teaching group classes alone does not fit your needs, then it’s time to consider a business pivot to explore adding services to your group class offerings, or to replace group classes. Pivoting can be difficult as we are all subject to the Yama Aparigraha (attachment.) Each of us likely came to this process with an idea of a yoga business we would love. Letting go of that idea to pivot to a better suited business can be difficult.
Your yoga business success may lay in a different path than the traditional teaching group classes.
Let’s assume you have a love for two things: yoga and golf. Now imagine creating specialized yoga classes and workshops for golfers. You may find that the local golf courses or clubs will be willing to offer a space for the golf-focused yoga classes and workshops to provide their clientele with additional desirable services. You should anticipate a fee split between you and the host location. The typical split may range between 50-50% to 70-30% (you-host.) Splits differ by regions of the country. Decide ahead of time the minimum pay you require.
You now have a highly specialized yoga business that brings together two of your passions – golf and yoga. You can further customize the business to suit your schedule and needs by right sizing your business. You can keep this specialty yoga business small or grow it through workshops or even traveling around to golf clubs to deliver your unique yoga expertise.
Another benefit of this specialized yoga business is its flexibility. You are not tied down by having to teach a class at a specific time each week. You can offer to teach the golf yoga weekly classes as a six-week series which can be repeated. This allows you to “do the work once” in the creation of the classes and get paid repeatedly as you deliver the program over and over. Another big benefit is that you can deliver the series according to your schedule.
Finally, you can delight your students by helping them improve their golf experience as you week-by-week help them address their issues.
Put in the Time
The analysis in this article explores only a few options when it comes to designing your yoga businesses. Numerous other variations exist, and the right one is waiting for you.
Be open to what you never considered as your yoga business. For example, when you teach yoga, do you regularly get comments, questions, or compliments about a particular topic or practice? If so, maybe that’s an area you should explore.
When designing your yoga business, don’t be in a hurry. The first step is to dream and identify what moves you. Then examine that business in the cold light of reality. In this way, you have a better chance of identifying your potential struggles.
If during this process you decide you need to pivot your business, then pivot your business and count your blessings, because knowing a business is unsuitable sooner rather than later is a gift. You would rather know your dream business is not workable (at least for now) before you sink a lot of time, effort and money into it. And remember, maybe a simple pivot in your business is all that’s needed to go from unworkable to a perfect fit.
Next Steps
No doubt dreaming about your business is the fun part. Now it’s time to put dreams into words and get specific. The next step in launching your business after the analysis set out in this article is to create your business documents – purpose, vision, mission, and business plan.
For more on how to design and launch your yoga business, including the business documents recommended, check out the eBooklet I designed for you here.
Good luck and enjoy your new venture!
