Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
Bringing together local businesses and neighbor of the Tri-Cities region. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Skip Mauney helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around The Tri-Cities.
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 165: Flowing Into Wellness: The Story of Downtown Yoga Center with Rachael Santiago
What makes Rachael Santiago with The Downtown Yoga Center a good neighbor?
Discover the inspiring journey of Rachael Santiago, co-owner of the Downtown Yoga Center, as she shares her transition from a yoga student to a passionate business owner. In this episode, we explore the transformative power of yoga and the unique challenges that come with entrepreneurship. Rachel reveals the heartwarming initiatives at her studio, including the popular kitten yoga sessions, and addresses common misconceptions that might deter beginners from trying yoga.
We delve into how Rachael is breaking boundaries with exciting new offerings, including upcoming reformer Pilates classes, making wellness accessible to all. The conversation is enriched with insights into effective marketing strategies and community engagement that foster a supportive environment for both patrons and the business.
Join us for an authentic discussion that encourages you to step outside your comfort zone and embrace new experiences. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about the benefits that yoga can bring to your wellness journey, regardless of your current ability or background. Tune in and be inspired to discover what your dream job can look like! Remember to subscribe, share, and leave us a review if you enjoyed the episode!
To learn more about The Downtown Yoga Center go to:
https://www.downtownyogacenter.com/
The Downtown Yoga Center
(423) 232-9642
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast of the Tri-Cities. We've got an incredibly special guest with us here today and I'm super excited to learn more about them and their business, because I have a stressful job, as I'm sure many do, and I can use every opportunity to relax and get mind, body and spirit working together. So super excited to hear all about our guest today, whom I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, miss Rachel Santiago, who is the co-owner of the Downtown Yoga Center in Johnson City. Rachel, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Well, we are thrilled to have you. Like I said, I'm all about some relaxation and I've personally never been a student of yoga, but I have a lot of friends who are and they swear by it. So why don't you kick us off by telling us a little bit about what you do?
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah. So my husband and I bought Downtown Yoga Center almost two years ago now, so 2023. But the studio itself has actually been here for 10 years. I've apparently been telling people wrong. I thought it was 2016. It was actually 2015 when it opened, so we're going to have to throw a big birthday party for it this year. Yes, first business that we've owned, but it's been a blast. So I'm here at the studio full-time. My husband works another job, but he helps with all the construction work around here when we do it and we offer a variety of yoga classes. We offer them seven days a week, everything from power yoga to restorative, and we also offer ropes classes, which is unique to our studio. We just have a rope wall in one room and we're getting ready to offer reformer Pilates as well, so we're excited about that, oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Very nice. Well, no goats involved.
Speaker 3:No goats? Yet we actually get asked that question quite often. We do partner with Tiny Miracle Kitten Rescue fairly often to host kitten yoga though. So they'll yeah, they'll supply the kittens, they unleash them in our back studio and then, if you sign up and get a ticket, you're back there practicing yoga with kittens all over the place.
Speaker 2:It's really fun Kittens, kittens. Oh, my wife.
Speaker 3:Kittens too.
Speaker 2:My wife would never leave your studio if you had kittens.
Speaker 3:It's a really fun class. I'm allergic to cats but they are so cute because they're so little. And, yeah, they're adorable.
Speaker 2:Kitten yoga. I learned something today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you should come yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you should come.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so, rachel. How did you get into this business? Well, I actually started coming to the studio as a client in I think it was 2016 at the very end of the year, as a New Year's resolution. So I started coming here as a student. I took a bunch of classes. I was working the front desk. At that time they were doing a work trade, so I was working the desk and I got free yoga classes and not long after that, I ended up doing my teacher training here under the previous owner and became an instructor. So then I was doing that and then eventually, at a staff meeting one week, the previous owner, kim, mentioned that she was looking to sell and I didn't think anything about it. But I did go home and tell my husband and he was like, hey, we should think about this. So we thought about it. Now here we are, should?
Speaker 2:think about this. So we thought about it. Now, here we are. Here you are here. You are. Well, Rachel, what are some myths or misconceptions in the yoga industry?
Speaker 3:Yes, there's a lot of them. The one I hear the most often is that you have to be flexible to do yoga. It's kind of the opposite of that. If you're super flexible and you're doing yoga, you're having to work so much harder right, like if you can flatten out into a forward fold or something like that, you're having to fold further. So if you're not flexible, yoga is still for you. There's plenty of like beginner friendly classes that we offer too. So it's not. It can be intimidating to start, but it really isn't challenging once you get into it.
Speaker 2:Very good. Well, I'm kind of stiff, so that's good news.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we know marketing is key to any business success. How do you market the yoga center?
Speaker 3:Mostly on social media. We'll do flyers occasionally, but I've actually been looking at a billboard recently, which is also a fun new step for us. But yeah, primarily just social media and then word of mouth. We do have Yeehaw Yoga in the summers, which ends up bringing us a lot of clients. So we'll be over in Founders Park on Wednesday evenings and we do it every year. They're donation-based classes and then the proceeds go to a different charity every month, but if you see a bunch of people out in the park in the summer, that's usually us, so that draws in a bunch of clients too.
Speaker 2:I think I have seen that actually. Yeah, I think I have.
Speaker 3:It's nice, and then you get a free half pint of beer over at Yeehaw Brewing afterwards.
Speaker 2:Very nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a good combination.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well outside of work, rachel. What do you like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:Well, the house that we live in is 125 years old, so that keeps us busy. We love it and we're just like slowly but surely restoring it. And then we've got three rescue dogs that work against us in that process and kind of destroy the house as we get it fixed up. And we like to host dinner parties. We were just talking about it. We haven't done it in a couple months, but we like just host dinner parties. We were just talking about it. We haven't done it in a couple of months, but we like just having friends over. We'll do like a murder mystery night or something like that. It's really fun.
Speaker 2:Oh, that sounds very fun actually yeah it's cool.
Speaker 3:It works well in an old house that's most likely haunted it just. It sets the mood very well.
Speaker 2:Of course, of course. So let's change gears for a second. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge you've been through, either personally or professionally, and how, when you came out the other side, you were better for it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, honestly, this like business ownership when I told my husband about, you know, the sale of the business and he encouraged me to consider us buying it, it happened at a really good time, obviously, like it was a good opportunity for us. But I was terrified, like we had never owned a business before. It was a huge commitment and, yeah, it was a really big step and I was scared the whole time. But we figured it out and you kind of just learn as you go and I'm like so glad we did it. This is my dream job and I didn't realize I had one. So it's been really fun because we we both get to work in a lot of different roles just through business ownership. So it's been great and I'm I'm glad we took the leap.
Speaker 2:Starting, starting a business is is not an easy thing to do. It's not easy.
Speaker 3:No matter how many times you've done it, it's always scary, I don't know, but like I can't imagine it ever being like, oh sure, no big deal, I'm just starting a business or buying a business or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's scary every time. Yeah, it's gotta be well if rachel if you could think of one thing that you would like our listeners to remember about, uh the uh downtown yoga center of johnson city, what would that be?
Speaker 3:yeah, um, right now we've just been really trying to advertise the fact that we are starting reformer Pilates soon, so we're trying to get the word out about that. We'll be the first group reformer Pilates studio in the area, so we're really excited for that, also scared, because that was a big leap, a big transition for us. But we're all set up. We're just waiting on the reformers themselves to come in and we're really excited about it. But we hope everybody else is as excited as we are. So we're just trying to spread the word as much as we can.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. We'll try to help you do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great with our listeners.
Speaker 2:So if anybody's interested in Pilates or Kitten Yoga or any of the services you offer, how can they learn more?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have a website. It's just downtownyogacentercom. And then we're also on Instagram and Facebook. You can follow us along there. We try to post updates, especially lately when the weather's been a little crazy. We'll post live updates on social media if we ever have to cancel. But our website you can sign up for an account there and then see all of our classes and just sign up online and get all the updates that way too.
Speaker 2:All right, very good, very good. Well, rachel, I really appreciate you taking time out to be on our show and we wish you and your husband and your business all the best moving forward.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and maybe when you've got something new going on, we can have you back.
Speaker 3:I'd love to. Sounds great.
Speaker 2:All right, sounds good. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.