Yoga originated from India and has been practiced for several centuries but became very popular in America as a form of exercise in the late 20th– 21st century. Now, almost everyone wants to practice and incorporate yoga into their regular fitness regime.
The benefits of yoga are said to include-:
- Helping to control the mind and body.
- Improves strength and flexibility.
- Relieves stress and body pain.
- Supposedly boosts immunity.
- Improves sexual performance.
- Improves quality of sleep.
- Reduces food cravings and helps to stay fit.
- Increases self-discipline.
- Helps to build muscle and stamina.
There are certainly a lot of reasons why people love yoga. If all these benefits come from practicing few times a week, think of all the benefits that would come from being a yoga teacher. So, I can categorically tell you that starting a yoga studio is not in any way a bad idea. To start your yoga studio, you should do the following-:
How to Start a Yoga studio – Sample Business Plan Template
1. Write a Business Plan-: First, you have to research the area where you desire to start your Yoga Studio. How many Yoga Studios already exist and how satisfied are the clients? You can carry out a small marketing research for finding out what people would think about a new yoga studio, what facilities and features they would like to have and if they would be willing to patronize a new studio
From your research, you would be able to learn whether it would be feasible to start a yoga studio or not. Then, you should find out what the start-up costs would be and then incorporate all your research findings into your yoga studio business plan.
2. Get your Yoga Certification-: To become a yoga teacher, you would need a yoga certification from Yoga Alliance, the organization in charge of regulating and standardizing the Yoga Practice. A visit to the yoga alliance website would reveal all the criteria you must meet up with before you can be certified.
3. Decide on your operating strategy-: There are three ways I can recommend that you should do this; the first is to partner with fitness clubs, gymnasiums and fitness centers. You could pay for a space within a fitness center and have a commission agreement with them for each student you register.
The second is to start your own yoga studio from the scratch although you would need a lot of perseverance, marketing and hard work to succeed. The third way is to become a private yoga teacher. You could set up appointment to visit people in their homes to teach them yoga or you could get hired by fitness centers or schools to become their yoga instructor.
4. Gain Experience-: The first ingredient for success in any business is experience. When you are experienced, you would understand how to run the business and surmount challenges. It is not just enough to love yoga, if you want to build a business out of it, you have to learn and understand the business aspects of yoga.
5. Choose a Niche-: Although ‘Yoga’ is a general name, it would interest you to know that there are different types of yoga. There is Hatha Yoga Prenatal Yoga, Restorative Yoga, Bikram Yoga, Vinyasa Yoga, Ashtangar Yoga, Iyengar Yoga and Jivamukti Yoga, all with different ways, reasons and methods of practicing them. Therefore, you should decide on the type of yoga you want to teach.
6. Hire Yoga Instructors-: This is for people who do not know much about yoga but are still interested in starting a yoga studio; well, who says you can’t? Of course you can, all you need do is hire someone who would be in charge of the training and instruction while you handle the business aspect. You can hire full-time yoga instructors or part-time teachers who would come in regularly.
7. Choose a location-: Next, you should a suitable location to site your yoga studio. You should an area that is suitable for siting a fitness center. A place that is close to a fitness center, stadium or a gymnasium is a very good location. You should also consider facilities like heating, ventilation, shower and space. A yoga studio should not be too cramped up such that clients cannot stretch properly. You should choose a place that is large enough and can accommodate expansion in future.
8. Source for customers-: You would need to develop marketing strategies to get clients to patronize you. You should get some promotional items like flyers, business cards and even a business website. You could even devise promotional strategies to break into the market like offering free complimentary sessions; considering that people love free stuff, you would be able get and retain a couple of customers that way.
9. Expand your business-: Don’t just stop at opening a yoga studio, you should also continue to devise different strategies to grow your business. For instance, you could organize events like retreats, seminars and similar events that people can attend and then consequently patronize your yoga studio.
10. Have a social media presence-: To build more clientele, you should consider creating accounts on social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. By talking about Yoga regularly and posting pictures, videos and tutorials on the internet to educate people, you would be able to attract more clients.
11. Pay attention to your clients-: Also, to succeed in this business, you would need to be attentive to the needs of your clients and ensure that they get desired results. You should understand that most people would come to you because of what they have heard about yoga and what it can help them to achieve. You must try as much as possible to ensure that these goals are achieved. That is the only way you can retain them and gain more patronage.
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