Step : Get Business Insurance
Just as with licenses and permits, your business needs insurance in order to operate safely and lawfully. Business Insurance protects your companys financial wellbeing in the event of a covered loss.
There are several types of insurance policies created for different types of businesses with different risks. If youre unsure of the types of risks that your business may face, begin with General Liability Insurance. This is the most common coverage that small businesses need, so its a great place to start for your business.
Learn more about General Liability Insurance.
Another notable insurance policy that many businesses need is Workers Compensation Insurance. If your business will have employees, its a good chance that your state will require you to carry Workers’ Compensation Coverage.
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Dont Let Money Scare You
Money can often be the most stressful factor in opening a business. Make sure to consider all expenses and be smart about your financials going into it. If your future studio is in a good location and serving a need in the community, it will grow and thrive and be worth the investment.
- When considering ways to raise funds for your business, remember the following:
- Bank loans often have a high-interest rate around 10% and require monthly payments. Banks will review your current income, current debt, credit score, and assets before offering you a loan, so it is not a guaranteed way of funding if your financials are not strong to begin with.
- Asking to borrow money from friends and family can lead to uncomfortable situations. Instead, consider doing a crowd-sourcing campaign, like GoFundMe or IndieGoGo, where people can donate money to support your endeavor. You can offer things like class sessions or branded gear as small rewards for their generosity.
- Take time to do the math and be honest about how much money you need to have for your studio. Plan out scenarios of how many monthly memberships and class packages you would need to sell in a month to cover costs and also pay yourself reasonably. Know that future revenue opportunities will also come from leading workshops, teacher trainings, and retreats.
How To Open A Yoga Studio
So youve decided: you want to open up your own yoga studio. Youve heard the warnings, the countless testimonies of disaster, the rumors that it will drain your passion, but have chosen to ignore them all becausesomeone has to do it and you are the determined yogi who will overcome the hurdles and successfully transmute your own passionate practice into a thriving place of business.
So now, where do you start?
You probably have a vision for both the kind of studio atmosphere you want to foster and the community that you want to develop through this space if you dont, this is your step 1.
Not all yoga studios are the same, here are some essential questions to considering before opening your yoga studio:
These are the questions you should have answers clearly mapped out to: a yoga business is fundamentally different from other business endeavors, in that, most other endeavors wont involve your spiritual practice, but it is also, fundamentally, the same. If you dont understand your clientele or have clearly delineated business goals and plans, you are going to be vastly overwhelmed by a constant swell of challenges.
Obviously minimizing overhead is a priority, but you need to determine how much youre prepared to pour into the process initially, before your business is profit capable.
Are you looking for a space with one large room or do you need multiple studio spaces for simultaneous classes ?
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Start A Yoga Studio: Proven Success Blueprint
Have you dreamed about starting your own yoga studio? If youre passionate about yoga and are considering starting a yoga studio, this proven blueprint will guide you through the process of opening a thriving yoga studio step-by-step.
We will go into in-depth detail about everything you will need to know to start a yoga studio. Bookmark this guide as you will find information that will be relevant at different stages of your journey.
Each step outlined in this guide is crucial to the success of your yoga studio, and Ill guide you through the most efficient ways to tackle the obstacles along the way.
As The Creator Of Spiritually Fly Yoga Teacher Faith Hunter Uses Chanting Music Breath And Movement To Encourage Her Students To Embrace Their Unique Flow In The Classroom And Beyond
When I practice at home, I truly listen to and honor where I am emotionally and physically. Some days my practice is restorative and healing, and other days it is a more fluid, high-energy experience.
The practice of yoga has provided and continues to provide comfort, balance, and steadiness during challenging moments. I always know my practice is there, holding a space for my heart. When I do feel challenged, I typically start with a short meditation that I do in bed when I first wake up. It gets me going and provides focus when those uncomfortable thoughts creep in. The meditation includes a little visualization and ends with giving thanks. This approach sets the tone for my day,and inspires my body to move.
I recently returned to New York City. My current home is a cute junior one-bedroom apartment that is also my home office. My space is very personalized. I have an altar with family photos, flowers, pillows, yoga props, mats, lots of books, and other memorable items Ive collected over the years. Im also inspired by my two adorable shih tzus, Yoshi and Sebastian, moving around the apartment. I love watching them shapeshift into Upward-Facing and Downward-Facing Dog.
Practicing alone gives me the opportunity to explore who I am on an intimate level, the time to dive deeper into my meditation practice, and the freedom to move in a way that feels natural to me.
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Scope Out The Competition
The next consideration when choosing a suitable location is checking out the local competition. How many other yoga studios are in that area? Is the area saturated?
It doesnt mean you shouldnt open your yoga business in that space, but it does mean youll need to bring a better product to the market.
Check the competition out. See what their customer experience is like. Explore what the quality of teaching is like and what offerings they have. How busy are the classes at peak and off-peak times? Youll soon get a sense if theres space for more.
An Additional Source Of Revenue
The fitness market is highly competitive and it might take you some time to fit in the market. Initially, revenues can be irregular and low, so having an additional source of revenue can help you throughout your business life. Selling Yoga mats, water bottles, fitness accessories, clothing, or supplements can help you add more revenue. The entire industry generated 15 percent of its revenue from Pilates and Yoga certification training, and 14 percent from merchandise sales.
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Monitor Renewals And Attendance
Without students. you cannot run a yoga studio! In the beginning, when you are teaching most or all classes yourself, it is much easier to build up a good relationship with students. It is very important that you know the names of your students. We often say : The sweetest sound for a person is their own name. This does hold quite some truth and by simply knowing your students names you create the foundation for trust and loyalty. Knowing your students goals will also help you to guide them more effectively in the classes.
To run a successful yoga studio, you want students to keep coming back. This is called renewal. Usually the percentage of renewals, give you a good impression of the quality of your service.
When hiring and paying teachers to teach at your studio, make sure to instill the importance of building trust and loyalty with students. It is our advice to pay teachers at your studio based on renewals or attendance of their classes. A good yoga teacher does much more than just give instructions. A yoga teacher who is only concerned with leading the class, becomes very replaceable and students are much less committed to keep attending the class. A yoga teachers value lies in his or her ability to guide students individually, to challenge them, to help them and to make them want to come back for more. If you, as the studio owner, or your teachers are not performing up to these standards your studio most likely wont flourish.
Have A Logo And Website
Another crucial aspect of starting your own yoga business is to have a memorable logo and website for your yoga studio. Both of these graphic designs are extremely important to draw potential customers attention to your yoga classes and business.
Before setting out to create a logo, look at some inspirational yoga logos to find out how your own logo should look like. But make sure that the logo stands out from the crowd to convey your brand message.
You also need a user-friendly website to promote your yoga classes amid your target audience. The website must have the relevant information about the type of yoga you teach, its benefits, your fees, contact details, and so on.
Make sure that the website is impressive in terms of its use of colors, typefaces, images, and content. Remember that most of the people will reach to your business location by first locating your website on the Internet. So, make efforts also to optimize the website for increasing its visibility in the search results when people google for yoga studios in your area.
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Online Ads And Search Engine Optimization
Online ads and SEO are additional options to promote your business. SEO is the method of having your website rank higher in search engines, such as Google and Bing, and increases the probability of people visiting your website. Both online ads and SEO will require searching for a proper agency to do it for you, unless you are willing to spend the time to learn it.
Choosing The Right Color For Your Yoga Studio
We polled 100 yoga studios and found that the most popular colors for yoga studios were shades of purple and lighter shades of pink. However, the color you choose for your yoga studio should reflect your branding, aesthetic and be appropriate for your target clientele.
In my article on what color to paint a yoga studio, I reveal the most popular colors to paint a yoga studio poll results and explore the link between yoga, chakras, and color.
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Market Your New Studio
The old adage If you build it, they will come can fool you into believing that just because youve opened a new studio, people will show up for class.
Yoga is a highly saturated market with studios popping up on nearly every block to accommodate the growing number of practitioners. In America alone, there has been a 30 percent increase over the past four years in the number of people practicing yoga. To ensure that your studio gets noticed, you are going to need a solid marketing plan that will help to get the word out.
Thanks to the internet, spreading the word has never been easier. With several social platforms to choose fromeverything from Facebook and LinkedIn to Instagram and Twitteras well as Google local listings and paid ads, numerous options are available to you. If you are uncomfortable in the marketing department, then invest money in hiring a professional.
Ensure Good Member Experience
Yoga is all about acceptance, inclusivity and connecting to the universe. You can build a community in your Yoga studio by developing an interpersonal relationship with your clients. Your Yoga studio should become an integral part of your members’ daily rituals, lifestyles, and routines.
It’s also crucial that the people you hire to work in your studio – from Yoga instructors to receptionists to cleaners are all polite, helpful, and just as passionate about providing an outstanding client experience as you are.
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Music For Your Yoga Class
Whether you prefer yoga classes with or without music, you must understand the licensing requirements for the music you play in your yoga studio. Playing music in your yoga studio without the proper music license can lead to significant fines.
Review my guide on music in yoga studios. I have provided detailed information on the music licensing requirements and explored the pros and cons of conducting yoga classes with or without music.
Tias Little And His Wife Surya Created Prajna Yoga A Profound Journey Inward Through Yoga Poses Dharma Study Guided Meditation The Yoga Of Sound And Somatic Awareness Their Practice Allows For Unique Personal Transformation
My wife, Surya, and I built our dream practice space, from the ground up, on our 10-acre parcel of land outside Santa Fe. Built by a yogi carpenter, Robert Laporte, and designed by his wife, Paula Baker-Laporte, our home studio complements and enhances the mindfulness of the yoga experience. They used nontoxic materials and natural finishes, and the mud walls are made of straw clay. In building our practice space, we wanted to create a living structure that amplifies, not detracts from, the prana within the practice space.
The studio has unique windows, situated to allow a glimpse of the natural world outdoors. Within the space, weve placed elements that remind us of the raw, nonlinear beauty of natureblack river stones, a gnarled juniper bough, irregular pieces of sandstone moss rock. Like Zen temples in Japan, where a spare and pleasing aesthetic inspires the mind to go still, our practice space often elicits deep calm.
For me, it is paramount to ride the changing edge of being, for I am always in a state of becoming, never static. Thus, the practice should never simply be routine. For instance, I started in Ashtanga Yoga when I was in my early twenties. Now that I am over 50, I do a very different practice. I believe the practice should always stay fresh, creative, and interesting. It is only routine in that discipline and consistency are required to step onto the mat every day.
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Managing Money Time And Energy As Your Studio Is Starting Out
Know what you are getting into financially by calculating your projected monthly recurring expenses. Keep these expenses in mind: rent, paying yourself, paying teacher/front desk staff, utilities, insurance, MINDBODY yoga management software, bookkeeping software, email program .
Other than the main overhead costs of rent and utilities, the next largest operating cost will likely be paying your instructors. Think of the best pay structure for them, whether it be an hourly rate, or per head rate, or a hybrid of both. Remember that you want your instructors to feel valued and motivated to work at your studio! As you know, clients become very loyal to their favorite teachers.
When planning your class schedule, think about growing class offerings as the community grows. Consider starting with a lighter schedule in the beginning, with classes at the most popular times. This way, classes will feel more full, as opposed to students feeling low-energy in empty classes and instructors feeling discouraged with low attendance. If you are an instructor yourself, it may be worth it to put yourself on the schedule to teach more classes in the beginning as the community is still growing.
Hiring The Wrong Staff
Once youve decided to open a yoga studio, youve decided to undertake a tremendous amount of work. If you fail to build a reliable team and hire the wrong staff who dont share your passion, it can impact your progress. Starting a business may take you out of your comfort zone where you will be performing tasks that you might not have a lot of experience in. Hiring a team that can take charge of tasks that youre not confident in can help ease the pressure.
The right staff members can help your business thrive, but the wrong staff can be detrimental. Whether that means hiring a bookkeeper to look after your accounts or a studio manager to handle the day-to-day running, look for people with passion and drive. Check out our guide on how to hire the best manager for your fitness business.
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Facebook Ads For Your Start
Facebook allows the hyper-targeting of consumers, and you will be able to target the right demographic down to the postcode level. Although Google ads will help you acquire the initial base of students, you can use Facebook ads in addition to flyering to spread awareness in your locality.
You can run a single campaign introducing your yoga studio to your target demographic in the locality. You can spend £10 a day for 30 days for a total spend of £300 for a sign-up campaign.
The combination of Google ads, Flyers, and Facebook ads will cost you £1750 in total. This spend is sure to get you the initial base of 30 students from scratch.
Cost Of Opening A Yoga Studio Launch Event
You have come a long way! You have secured a place for your yoga studio, you have refurbished the studio and even ran marketing campaigns to acquire your first 30 student members! The final thing you need to spend on is the launch event to announce to the world that you are open for business.
Launch events are significant to introduce your yoga studio to the members of the local community. It is also suitable for inviting local journalists and influencers. The amount you spend on the launch event will depend on the number of people you invite.
For a small, intimate gathering of 20 people, you can budget £35 per person in food and drinks. This launch event for 20 influencers, journalists, and members of the local community will cost you £700 .
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