Ep 9 Why you should diversify your teaching

Welcome back to another episode of the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers podcast. I'm super excited to talk about diversifying your offerings in this episode. If you're wondering the why behind this topic. No worries. That's what we're here to talk about today. If teaching yoga is a long-term goal for you. What I'm going to share with you today is super important and you'll want to listen.

So let's talk about it...

Transcript

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Welcome back to another episode of the essential conversations for yoga teachers podcast. I'm super excited to talk about diversifying your offerings in this episode. If you're wondering the why behind this topic, no worries. That's what we're here to talk about today. If teaching yoga is a long game goal for you, what I'm going to share with you today is super important and you'll want to listen. So let's get to it. Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright, and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you. If you're a yoga teacher, you're looking for support. You love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you my life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned. All the stuff that wasn't taught in teacher training, my process for building my business and helpful ideas, tools, strategies, and systems I use and you can use so that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you want to dive deep and set yourself up for success. I'm so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously, so expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now let's do this together. Okay, before we get started, let me give you just a little bit of a life update from me. I just got back from co leading a yoga retreat in Michigan, and let me tell you, it was amazing. The last time I had hosted a yoga retreat was January of 2020. And, uh, we know what happened in March of 2020. And so I've been away from retreats for a few years. So my friend and colleague Maureen and I hosted a winter wellness retreat for women. teaching them skills on remembering the wisdom of their bodies and learning how to quiet the inner critic, you know, that little voice that's in your head all the time. I mean, we all have one, no matter your status, but the beauty of taking time to study yourself. Getting really honest and making choices that shift your perspective and outlook on life. The beauty of that is that your whole life changes, whether it's shifting from toxic positivity to plain old simple gratitude or transitioning from listening to your saboteurs to noticing them and not giving them the power. they once had over you. I tell people all the time self study is the best gift you can give yourself and I was honored. Beyond honored to co lead this magical weekend with my friend and colleague, Maureen. I wanted to share that experience with you because it goes along with the topic of this episode, Expanding Your Teaching. Retreats are one of the ways I expand my offerings and I love doing them for very specific reasons. Now, let's, I know that you know that yoga is a powerful practice and it benefits practitioners in many ways, both physically and mentally, right? And it's likely that this is one of the reasons why you decided to become a yoga teacher in the first place. Teaching gives us the chance to share this practice with others and help students improve their overall wellbeing. You know it! Because you experienced it, and that's one of the reasons why you wanted to teach. However, nowadays, the teaching landscape has changed so much, and there are so many ways to teach beyond in person group classes. You're going to find that expanding your teaching beyond this traditional format can bring many benefits to both you So let's take a look at a few of the benefits you'll experience and your students will receive when you expand beyond in person group classes. Live online classes, recorded online classes, private clients, workshops. Let's discuss the benefits of all of those. Then we'll discuss. How expanding benefits you too, because you're going to grow so much when you start to branch out, I promise. Before we start, I have to mention that one big reason to expand your teaching outside of in person group classes is that it allows you to reach a wider audience. audience. We're always trying to reach a bigger slash wider student base. So the following examples are going to help you with that as well. The first is online classes. Online classes can be accessed by anyone with internet access, regardless of their location or proximity to you. Typically, studios attract students from the neighborhood, you know, or maybe you teach at a studio that's close to a student's workplace. Now, it does happen, but it's pretty rare for a student to bypass 30 yoga studios to get to one across town. I say it does happen because I used to do that. I had my favorite teachers that I would travel far and wide to take their classes. Ever. If I could have taken their classes online and saved myself gas, time, and time again. and money, I for sure would have done that. This is also especially beneficial for people who live in rural areas without a studio in their neighborhood that's convenient to get to. Not even having the option to practice at a local studio is a legit barrier for some. But nowadays, there are tons of online options for them to choose from. So why not make your classes available to students out of range of your in person classes? It's kind of like a no brainer. The next is to create and make recorded classes online, available for students to take at any time, which can be super convenient for those with busy schedules. Let me be clear. You have a couple of options when going online, live classes and recorded classes. I adore them both for different reasons. Now, I absolutely love the recorded option because it gives your students freedom. The freedom to choose. What classes will suit them at the specific time that they choose to practice. And this kind of goes against the studio model. So one of my biggest gripes with the studio model is that the classes on the schedule are the only classes available to take. So for example, say you had a student who had a rough Monday at work and they want, or maybe I should say they need to wind down in the evening. But all the studio has to offer at 6 p. m. is a power flow. If we're really honest, that really is the last thing they need. And you know it. Even if, every other Monday, that power flow is the class that they take. Today isn't the day for it. So what do they do? Nothing. Lay around on the couch, take the Power Flow class, or could your student have the choice to take one of your pre recorded restorative classes? You see why giving students the choice to practice according to their needs is why I really love this option. It puts the choice back into the student's hands. hands and not the studio's hands. What about people who have like mobility issues, which makes it difficult for them to get out and attend in person classes? I have older family members who are interested in practicing yoga for the sole purpose of moving every day. But they don't want to go to a yoga studio. In fact, they're not going to go to a yoga studio. And they feel more comfortable practicing in the privacy of their own home. Could you teach chair yoga? What about teaching, like, standing only classes? There are tons of ways to help people who just want to move, right? You can help them by either meeting in person, or in a private setting, or online if they choose that option. Think of how beneficial this is going to be for them. Think about how you're helping them accomplish their movement goals. And maybe you realize that you really love teaching in this type of setting also. It's very different than the studio for sure. These private classes or private sessions are tailored to the individual needs of the students and provide an opportunity for more personal attention and guidance. Which gives you the chance to really learn your client's needs inside and out. All right, another benefit of expanding your teaching is that it allows you to offer different types of classes to your students. For example, Instead of teaching regular classes, you could offer workshops that focus on specific aspects of yoga, such as pranayama workshops or yoga for specific populations, such as seniors or maybe athletes. The thing about workshops is that they don't. only have to be attended by your regular students, right? When you create a workshop, you're making it specific to whatever subject you want to hone in on. So students who are interested in learning more about pranayama techniques are going to be interested in this workshop offering because they know that they're going to get more instruction than they would in a regular class that Just only includes a little bit of pranayama. If you're teaching a workshop for Seniors, you'd be teaching on ways to move throughout the day, you know incorporating movement into their daily lives teaching them how to do that teaching them ways to modify movement or ways to support more movement you'd even Be teaching why movement is important. What happens when they don't move, or when they move less than they should be moving. What effect that has on their body. You could have a section of the workshop that discusses that subject. All of this is super informative and maybe this is outside of the studio even. You could approach senior homes or hospitals with your ideas to come in and help their seniors move either a little better or a little more. I love the workshop model because it gives time for communication. That thing we do not do when we're teaching, uh, a group class. Teaching, then checking for understanding, practice time, and space for Q& A. All really super important if we're talking about educating and not just teaching. Now, when you expand your teaching or when you begin to diversify your teaching, it's also going to bring in new opportunities for growth and development. Here are some examples. If you decide to teach online classes, for example, this is going to be a great way to learn new skills and techniques outside of teaching yoga. Can you say tech or technology? Oh my God, I have learned so much about technology in the last three years, it's not even funny. And I've become much more resilient when I have a problem with it or when I run into a brick wall. And running into a brick wall still happens today, but I know how to handle it better. The thing is, is that tech isn't as big of a huge, scary monster as it was for me in the past. I mean, I suppose I tamed that monster a little bit. And you can too, if technology seems like a lot, or if it seems like it's the thing that's getting in your way. Next, you'll learn about marketing strategies. If you're on a teaching staff at a yoga studio, you don't really have to do all the marketing of your offerings, uh, like your classes, workshops, teacher training, et cetera. The studio typically has a marketing department if it's a corporate studio, or the studio owner does most of it. For example, creating flyers and updating the schedule, right? I mean, you're going to promote things. Just not all of the back end stuff is your responsibility. But you will learn how to talk about your offerings in an effective way that entices students to want to sign up for your classes. It can also be an opportunity to up your networking skills, connect with yoga teachers from around the world and learn from their experiences and expertise. Think about it. This could even lead to collaboration opportunities. Which leads to widening your net and meeting more people. Now, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Because there's always an elephant in the room. Right? Increasing your income. We might as well talk about it because rich, millionaire, yoga teachers is really not a thing. But creating a teaching career that's sustainable Money wise needs to be a thing. I mean, especially if you want to be teaching long term. You have got to be able to take care of your needs. The roof over your head, food, a healthy living lifestyle, which includes you being able to pay and do the things that you want to be doing. When you teach in person classes, you are trading your time for money. Money is infinite. But your time is not, so you have to get clever when it comes to how you're going to make money. If you're teaching 20 plus classes a week, hats off to you. I could never. First off, I am 52 years old and I do not have that kind of energy anymore. Second. I'm still raising children, although they're older and more self sufficient than toddlers. I still can't be absent, nor do I even want to be. And third, that schedule is not sustainable over the long run. You know it. In person classes bind you with time. Time runs out and for whatever the reason, you can't add more classes. So, you have to think about various sources of income that will add to the income you earn from your regular classes. And what we've talked about in this episode are ideas to help you begin to elevate your teaching, expand your knowledge and skills, and increase your income. I'll leave you with this. Expanding your offerings is something that you have got to think about if you want a lengthy teaching career. If you want to increase your expertise, if you want to reach a wider audience, And if you want to increase your income streams and free up your time, if you want to learn how to actually do this, or if you're looking to save time and energy and not traipse all over the internet to figure it out, the business of yoga 2. 0, my four month coaching program for yoga teachers opens for enrollment every April. And it's the big workshop that we never got in TT on how to actually make yoga your career. I work with a small group of teachers each round, and to make sure we're a perfect fit, there's an application process. So that I know for sure that we can make a difference in your career. I'll link the sign up for the waiting list in the show notes. Hop on it so we can stay in touch and you can learn more about creating the business that you love. Expanding your offerings helps you in so many ways from staying deeply in love with teaching yoga to pushing you to try new things. It's super important for us to have this conversation so that you remember that there are so many opportunities for you in the teaching world. You know that my goal is for you to love the yoga teaching career and allow it to be fulfilling and rewarding. And as always, it takes some time to get there. If you love this episode, let me know, subscribe to the podcast so you're always in the know when a new episode drops and share it with another yoga teacher who you think would love to be in on these conversations. Since teachers have asked for business related episodes, I'm excited to bring you more in the future. for helping to spread the word about this podcast. And finally, don't forget to join my newsletter. That's just for yoga teachers. I'll link it in the show notes below, and I would love for you to join it so we can always stay connected. All right, that's it for now. Bye.