If you’re a regular at the Yoga studio, love practicing in the privacy of your own home or anything in between, you may have considered teaching it yourself. Yoga is a big business in the US. Many people can be seen taking classes and doing the moves on any given day. With the pandemic, many Yoga instructors have taken to doing online classes via Zoom and other video programs, but many are returning to the studio where people get a more personal experience.
When you’re thinking about opening a studio, you will want to make sure you have the experience. It’s best to go through a certified course and do some work in an established studio first. You will need to decide where to start. Your best route will be to get educated in teaching Yoga, taking classes yourself at different established studios and paying attention to how they’re taught then teaching at an already established studio until you can build your own clientele. Once you open a studio, you’ll need to find your students and if you’re brand new to teaching, it will be harder.
Get An Education
The first step is to take a Yoga course that is certified by a body like the Yoga Alliance. They have classes listed on their website and you can show that you’re certified by them specifically if you go through one of their courses. Of course, Yoga instruction isn’t well regulated so there are plenty of other options, but more people will take you seriously if you go through the hoops to attain that level of certification.
Just because you’re educated in teaching Yoga doesn’t mean you’re educated enough to truly teach it. You will learn teaching and you’ll learn about the history and culture behind Yoga (very important to respect the culture because cultural appropriation is bad in the Yoga industry but teaching with respect to the Indian culture that is behind the meditations and exercises isn’t appropriating).
When you’re going through school or before you start, it’s best to attend some classes to see how they’re run. It’s also going to be best if you already know the moves and have been practicing for some time. Shop around and attend several classes from several studios.
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Visit Multiple Studios
Visit multiple studios that do different types of Yoga classes and take several classes through them. Get to know the moves inside and out and make sure you pick up a lot from each class. Pay close attention to how the instructor acts and what they do. If you have any friends who are instructors, talk to them.
In some cases, you may be able to ask if you can tour the studio and talk to the owners about working in studios, maybe even interview some instructors to see what goes into actually teaching that you may not learn in a course.
Find an Established Studio
You should find an established studio that has a client base and get on with them first. That will help you gain experience, build a clientele and build a reputation. You can even find ways to experiment with different kinds of Yoga and different styles of teaching. As your reputation increases and your client base increases, you can gauge when the time will be right to strike out on your own. If you go that route.
You may even decide that you would rather work for an established studio long term instead of opening a studio yourself. Working for a studio comes with perks like choosing how much you charge like you would if you owned one, it can also come with a client base that is already there and advertisements for your classes.
The cons of continuing to work for a studio would be that you still would have rules to follow and fees to pay, but you would likely be a contractor using their studio and they would likely have ways they already established for advertising the classes.
Reach Your Ideal Clientele
You may find a good studio, but many of the other instructors will already have loyal students who come for their classes and may not be interested in trying yours. You will need to do some marketing on your own to get the word out about your classes. You will need to look at your overall budget to get an idea of how much you can spend on paid ads as well as utilize social media. For things like Yoga, Instagram can easily help with gaining a following and Facebook helps local businesses reach locals.
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Open Your Studio
Once you have some experience under your belt, clients that come specifically to you and an established way of doing your classes, you may want to open your own studio. If you open one, you will be starting from the ground, so you will need a strong marketing campaign.
First create your business plan and figure out funding. Find everything you’ll need to buy and everything you’ll need to charge. If you have money saved from instructing in other places, you can put that towards opening the studio and if you’re big enough, you may not need to get a loan. Even if you don’t need a loan, you will still want to create a good plan. It will help you keep on track of what you’re doing and where you’re wanting to go.
Once you have the plan and location set up, you will want to determine how you want to open. Some businesses have huge now open events and others choose to have smaller openings but do a lot of promotions. You may decide to have a huge kick off party or offer reduced services (or free products if you choose to sell Yoga items as well).
Before opening, you will need to decide a few things- what type of Yoga you will teach, the schedule of classes and how many other people will offer classes in your studio. You may have made friends with other instructors during your time instructing and they may want to come work under your studio. If that’s the case, you need to decide if you want to charge per class, student or rent out space.
Do A Yoga Retreat
Many people are willing to pay top dollar to attend weekend retreats and Yoga works perfectly with a weekend of relaxation. There are also seven-day retreats where clients will pay even more.
Retreats require a lot of prep work and planning, but when they are executed successfully, they will be an experience other people will be raving about to all their friends and word of mouth can spread like wildfire. Look into the most luxurious areas near where you live and figure up the cost of hosting the weekend in that location. Talk to other professionals in the relaxation industry and find others interested in putting the event together.
Once you have the certifications, you will see that there will be several doors opened to you. You can make a lot of money doing weekend retreats a few times a year, doing weekly or even monthly classes or opening a studio. Yoga has become a billion-dollar business and people are more than willing to shell out top dollar for classes or products. Once you start instructing you will make new friends, contacts and other people who may end up helping you in the long run.
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Frequently Asked Questions
When you decide how much to charge, you need to look at your time spent teaching. It may be an hour, half hour or even longer. Look at the expenses next. If you have to pay per student to host, you will need to factor that cost into the cost per student or if it’s flat for the room/studio, factor a percentage into the cost. Figure out a base cost and add all the other expenses to the base (divide by the number of students you’re going to have, if you don’t know, estimate how many you think you’ll have).
This is purely an opinion and depends on how much else you have to do during the week, number of students who take each class (if you sell out every class but still have more wanting to join, you may want to add additional classes). If you do more than teach Yoga and it’s side income, you won’t have as much time to host hour long classes per week as you do when you’re only teaching.
If you want to work full time and have hour long classes, teaching forty classes a week wouldn’t be out of the question but if you already work full time, forty would be too much. Look at your schedule as well as clients and try to come up with the best number that works with your schedule.
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To learn more about starting your own Yoga Business check out my startup documents here.
Please note: This blog post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult a legal expert to address your specific needs.
Meet Shawn Chun: Entrepreneur and Yoga Fan
I’m a happy individual who happens to be an entrepreneur. I have owned several types of businesses in my life from a coffee shop to an import and export business to an online review business plus a few more and now I create online yoga business resources for those interested in starting new ventures. It’s demanding work but I love it. I do it for those passionate about their business and their goals. That’s why when I meet a yoga business owner in public at a studio or anywhere else I see myself. I know how hard the struggle is to retain clients, find good employees and keep the business growing all while trying to stay competitive.
That’s why I created Yoga Business Boss: I want to help future yoga business owners like you build a thriving business that brings you endless joy and supports your ideal lifestyle.