Shannon Brasovan, Two-Brain Yoga Business Mentor
Yoga studio owners, you should be selling consistency.
Not stretchy pants.
Not yoga mats.
Not teacher trainings.
Consistency.
In Yoga Sutra 1.14, Patanjali basically lays this out for us:
“Perfection in practice comes when one continues to practice with sincerity and respect for a long period of time without any interruption.”
For more on this sutra, check out this great article.
No yoga texts—from the “Hatha Yoga Pradipika” to the “Shiva Sutras”—tell you that the way to equanimity is through teacher trainings. Nowhere does any great teacher say the path to enlightenment involves dropping into practices or only practicing when goats are involved. And while new yoga pants can feel oh so good, they are not the gateway to your inner peace.
The way to the practice and path of yoga is consistency.
As yoga studio owners, our goal should be to hold people accountable to a consistent practice. By building a business that upholds this value, we are helping our students reach their goals in their practice.
Drop-ins, teacher trainings, goat yoga and stretchy pants became the primary focus of yoga studios because they weren’t making ends meet. This has led to confused students who wonder why they should practice, and it hasn’t helped owners end the struggle to get students into their spaces.
Solutions for Consistency
So how do we fix this?
First, move to a membership model. If you currently operate on a drop-in or punch-card system, shift to a membership model ASAP. This encourages consistency and eliminates confusion about when and why people should show up.
Second, audit your space, website and social-media platforms. Ask yourself what it looks like you are selling.
Are you selling stretchy pants, handstands and teacher trainings? Or are you selling the life-changing benefits of a consistent yoga practice? If your answer is the former, start shifting your content to share the benefits of yoga practice and show what consistency looks like.
Finally, incentivize your students to practice consistently. When a student hits 108 practices in a year, elevate them on your social media! Snap a picture and tell their story. Find ways to make your clients famous.
Bonus: Have your teachers share why they practice consistently and the benefits they get from it on your members-only Facebook page. Monkey see, monkey do!
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