From Frazzled to Fearless: Finding Balance & Calm

In this episode, Michael reflects on his experience working with yoga studio owners and the common fears they face, particularly related to showing up on Instagram and in public. He shares his appreciation for podcasts as a platform for genuine conversations and explains why he has avoided solo episodes in the past. However, today he decides to break that pattern and dive into the current landscape of studio owners and their challenges.

Michael discusses the unique mix of clients he currently works with, including both new studio owners and those with varying levels of experience. He emphasizes the stark contrast between frazzled studio owners in constant reaction mode and calm, forward-thinking ones. Using Lisa from Tucn Yoga Pod as an example, he highlights the importance of having systems and a team in place that allows for a smoother operation and a more enjoyable work experience.

The conversation then shifts to the critical role of teachers in a yoga studio's success. Michael stresses that a studio is only as good as its teachers and emphasizes the significance of a thorough onboarding process and gut instinct when hiring. He advises studio owners to clearly communicate expectations and values to teachers, while also empowering them to be the best they can be. Michael encourages studio owners to support their teachers and help them improve, but also acknowledges that difficult decisions may need to be made if a teacher is not a good fit for the studio's vision.

• Contrasting frazzled studio owners with calm and controlled ones
• The significance of teachers and the onboarding process
• Supporting teachers to represent the studio's mission and vision
• The impact of hybrid and Zoom classes on returning to in-person experiences
• Adjusting camera placement for hybrid classes to enhance inclusivity
• Building confidence and encouraging students to return to the studio

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Michael Jay - Yoga Biz Champ 

Michael Jay, the Yoga Biz Champ, stands as the go-to Yoga Business Consultant, embarked on a mission to elevate yoga studios from mere survival to genuine thriving.

With a rich background as a yoga teacher, former studio owner, marketing expert, and yoga studio business coach, he possesses the insider knowledge necessary to elevate your yoga venture to new heights.

His passion for yoga, combined with a sharp business acumen and a sincere desire to see studio owners excel, encapsulates his professional ethos. Michael is not one to offer one-size-fits-all advice; instead, he's dedicated to providing tailored guidance, tangible outcomes, and supporting your studio to emerge as the next Yoga Biz Champ in your community. 

• Certified Yoga Biz Consultant • 
• FitTech Partner •
• Yoga Studio Launch & Growth Specialist

FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey hey Michael. Jay there. It's just me sitting around chatting today. I I work with my yoga studio owners and quite often I get them to face their fears and, a lot of those have to do with showing up on Instagram or showing themselves publicly. And one of my things is I love my podcast much because I have these amazing guests, rocking studio owners industry experts.

I'm just genuinely interested in conversation, but very rarely I think I've done one epide where I do, I just. Sit and chat. And I think one of the things is, I follow me other industry folks and and al in different areas and I watch them, and listen to them on their podcast and just think, ugh, they're just gas bags and full of themselves.

And I never want to be like that. I think that's why I've avoided it. But anyway, here I [00:01:00] am just chatting and I just honestly want to just come on here and have a conversation with studio owners or potential want be studio owners just to, of what I'm seeing right now, out there, and I have such an incredible mix of clients right now and a backlog of clients.

But in particular right now I have a mix of clients that are. My dream clients in every sense of the way. It's just like I look forward to seeing every single one of them. My days are amazing cuz I get to spend such quality time speaking with such amazing human beings. And the mix right now is 50% new studios opening and then the other 50% are a mix of.

20 [00:02:00] years. Been around to the first year just coming into their first year. And then me in between. I'm just gonna talk about the commonalities really, and the differences that I see in the studio owner that is feeling frazzled. That is, Feeling like they're on reaction mode all the time.

They're having to deal with little nitty gritty details of the business, like in the back end of their system and and just having to sub a lot, teach lot. There's just many different ways that, a studio owner can be frazzled. And especially coming out of Covid and many of these businesses, rebuilding again.

But I al want to talk about the differences [00:03:00] from the studio owner that is calm in control and not reactive forward thinking. It's a different, you can just hear the tone of my voice change, right? Because I'm just thinking about my, my. I have studios that are in that place. One of them I'll throw out there, it's my rockstar studio.

Lisa from Tucn Yoga Pod. She's been on my podcast twice. I work with three people in her business which is a privilege, honestly from a coaching perspective to be able to come into a business from three perspectives. But I'll use her because she's been public On my podcast, I'll use her as she just.

Came back from six weeks in France and nobody bothered her once. Maybe once, I think. But everybody handled [00:04:00] it. Everybody knows their lane. And there's a difference when I'm with, a new a studio that I'm just starting to work with, that it's in that reaction mode. It's ah, damn, I gotta sub tonight.

Oh. Damn, I've gotta fix this in mind, body. Oh, I've gotta get to the website. I've got, to, the meetings are different when we're trying to get all that stuff rted than when we're in a calm, controlled, there's a kind of a joyousness to that calm, controlled meeting. Because there's no reaction.

It's just okay we're already got systems in place. We've already got everything dialed in and rocking, but now how can we uplevel that experience or uplevel the sales or uplevel the bums on mats? It's a very different place. I'm just gonna, let's just talk about a few things, teachers,

 whether we are. The teachers, you are only as good as your teachers. If you are starting a brand new [00:05:00] studio or if you are purchasing a studio, or if you have been around for a while and have forgotten this stuff, your studio's only as good as your teachers. 

 That means having a really good. Onboarding process and a good gut instinct. Honestly, my best hires were the gut feeling. They truly were. I'll be honest with that. Even though I coached all of my studio owners to go through a, at an official onboarding process at a gut level, I always knew if there were gonna be a fit and represent my studio's mission, vision, values, and.

 Having that onboarding process where you can sit down with that potential hire and say, these are my expectations. This is what we represent. This is, the little nitty-gritty details we want you there 15 minutes before, but it's [00:06:00] really about, That pern's showing up the way you want them to consistently representing the studio.

Right? And what I do see is, particularly studio owners that have purchased a business or may have lost that control, of being the team lead. I hear, we just had a conversation with one of my studios about, a particular class not really representing how the studio Wanted them to represent it as far as, making the modifications, making the connections with the with other human beings in the room, .

And, if you have all those things going off that are not quite right, as far as being the best teacher at the best class, at the best time slot if you have anything, not. Right there. I gotta throw it back to you cuz it's all about [00:07:00] you. It's not about that teacher necessarily. You know as if you are a studio owner, you need to help them be the best teacher that they can be.

 You need to onboard them in the way that you want them to show up for the studio, but then if they're not quite showing up the way you want them to be, as in, not greeting people when they come in, not learning people's names or mething like that, it's actually a reflection of you.

And your training of your expectation and then, and not really holding them to that. Especially if you're starting a new brand new studio, this is the best time to get all this dialed in. But I'm not opposed to an existing studio, and I've done this many times successfully going into a studio and saying, okay.[00:08:00] 

We need to re onboard . Post Covid, we've been through a shit show. And the, there's, studios where me of the divas run, the owners and the owners are scared approaching the divas because they're the ones that get the numbers in and all of that stuff.

That's just not being in control of the situation, ? We really need to either onboard or re onboard. Into the new ways. Come in approaching of, hey look, this is like reset button. This is, whatever studio, na name, 2.0, 3.0. But we need to press the reset, reset button that every body gets on board with the studio's Mission, vision, values and goals.

 Then, as the lead, if that pern is not showing up then and the responsibility. Is on you, [00:09:00] then it's your job to figure out why and help empower maybe that teacher to represent you better, really, if it's a teaching skill then help them be a better, have better skills.

If they can't remember their life's lefts and rights. One of my things was to put an L and the r at on each side of the door the teacher could say, see that when they were learning mirror teaching, what tools can you do to help them be better? Can you go show them an example of how to meet and greet and how to motivate.

Students to come back. There's lots of opportunities there where you can really empower your team to step up and be better. But then there is the time where you're gonna have to, metimes for the betterment of the studio, [00:10:00] metimes you have to make hard decisions that may not be the right teacher.

For that class at that time slot. And metimes we have to throw things at the wind to see if they work. As far as, class, getting that magic formula of right teacher, right time right level. Really, getting them in right, training them right, and then helping them be better and then making difficult decisions 

the other conversations that have come up is about get, how do we get bums back on maps in areas of the world, in particular Canada, I'd say a little bit in Australia, I'm seeing this where not much in the states. The states is fully fledged black back into to things rocking on in the yoga world.

But there's me areas that are going slow. In, getting people back and a lot of people really stuck on just virtual and Zoom [00:11:00] and the hybrid classes. I wanted to have a little bit of a chat about this because me conversations have led to the discussions about that the hybrid or the Zoom classes may be holding.

Students back from coming back from the in-pern experience. I had an interesting, I taught a Zoom class like I'm a Zoom all in Zoom online only teaching now after 20 mething years of teaching. I'm just doing the Zoom now cause it works in my life. I get to keep my connections. But I had the opportunity last night, it happened to be not a big class and these were very loyal.

I. Loyal students. We kept the the microphone unmuted for the con cuz it was just a few of us. We kept it unmuted and had a conversation. I was like, what's it gonna take you guys? Were all on Zoom here. What is it gonna take for you to [00:12:00] go back to the in-pern experience and.

Overwhelming. They said they wanted to have that community feel again, that they missed that, that community feel. That was mething for them. But what they al missed was, No, this isn't for every single studio. That doesn't always follow, adjustments and touch. But they, this particular studio al really missed the pernal adjustments and the pernal touch and the teacher walking around the room, noticing them and talking to them and helping them, adjusting props.

And. They al talked about how in the hybrid experience, quite often that's a distraction because the teacher metimes, and from a teaching experience too it takes a skill to [00:13:00] teach to a hybrid to on Zoom audience and to a in-pern audience. We've been recommending that.

The attention has to go back to the in-pern experience, ? The people in the studio now should be the people that are getting the pernal attention. And that might be at the sacrifice of the teacher leaving the mat and the pern on Zoom.

Not always seeing everything, but I've got a lution for that in a moment. Kind of the conversation is are me of the classes holding hybrid classes holding people, going back to the in-pern experience or can we still keep the hybrid experience but this in-pern experience, gets the pernal attention, gets the touch, gets the special [00:14:00] attention, gets called out by name.

And then the hybrid experience comes a little bit secondary, ? And then the hybrid pern, the pern on Zoom, gets to al see what they're missing out on a little bit. Just food for thought on that. I think it's mething, I was known during Covid as the virtual guy. I spoke at the bowl conference on it.

And for me to be saying should we be cutting me of the classes off a little bit, it might be worth having the conversation and look at. Now the second part of this is, okay, if. The hybrid experience was to become a little bit secondary, ? You, it's not pernalized. How would changing the placement of the camera now, where the camera used to be in a lot of studios, close up almost taking a student's spot, metimes in front of the mat and [00:15:00] view or off to the side.

 Quite often that has been, on a cart or mething like that, taking a space. Conversation I had today with a studio owner was, how about we change the view of the virtual experience now that it is behind the class and up a bit? For this particular studio, it would be above the entry door.

 All we're doing is getting a super long damn cable for the camera and changing where the camera is. Not the equipment, just the camera. And you're still plugged in through the microphone or Bluetooth or whatever you are using in studio. The hybrid Zoom pern still get good und, but we've changed the position that then the pern joining in.

The class is almost having the student's view, ? Looking forward from the back of the class forward. Yeah, you might get a few bums in view there or but then it [00:16:00] becomes that they're almost a little bit part of the class. All right, just mething to consider now is, we need to start building confidence.

For people to get back to the in studio class experience. And speaking of confidence, another conversation I had this week with a studio owner was this pern has purchased a studio, an existing studio that used to have a really thriving community, still has a good community, but again, a little bit slow, getting back to the in-pern experience.

 The conversation was, Just put a plea out, like a super heartfelt, not saying we're struggling cuz we're not struggling, but just saying, Hey, we've been here this many years, we wanna continue to be here, but we need your help. We need you to get back to the studio. And just a really just, I think.

I think that people just need that little bit of a [00:17:00] nudge. Now they're still paying for their memberships maybe, not really coming back to the in-pern. I think just, saying, Hey, you guys are back at this, the grocery store without masks. You guys are back at, regular life.

Time to get back into your routines of, looking after you and taking great self-care.

All right, for feeling. Like you are calm and in control. Whether you are opening a brand new studio, you can set these systems up right away or whether you are resetting the button on an existing studio, it's the systems that give calm and. Ease to run in your studio, enjoy that you can enjoy.

You've heard me say this probably tons of times on this podcast, but watch your superpower double, triple down on your [00:18:00] superpower and hire out barter trade, whatever you've gotta do. To get help on the areas that you are shitty at, ? Anyway, just, really putting the systems in place. We already talked a little bit about having an onboarding.

Anybody that works with me I have a template for an onboarding document having your mission, vision values, knowing what your Northern star is on the business, and if you're starting. Out as a new studio documenting the processes as you are learning them. That could be how to log into your ftware, how to book a class in the ftware.

Like just I really documenting all those processes, how to turn the heat on, how to Sweep in between classes, how to fold the, how to fold the towels, having that, all those processes documented, and then [00:19:00] for a studio owner having processes and systems that help you with. Balance in your life.

Whether it's your onboarding documents and we've already talked about, and your other training things, having them in all one place, like a G Drive, Google Drive, or a place that's easy to find, that you're not on scraps of paper. And then, One of the big ones is time blocking your day and your week.

 I've been a time blocker for years. My calendar has multiple calendar, multiple colors in my calendar for everything. I've got healthcare under orange. All my clients go under purple. My time off goes under gray. Yes, I booked time off. And my, my working on the business time, I book my week, I actually [00:20:00] book my day balance.

 For example, my Wednesday, I teach late on on Wednesday nights, but I al start early for my East Coast clients. I'm starting metimes seven in seven in the morning for my East Coast clients. Then I'm going all, all day. My Australia clients are usually two in the afternoon, but I, on Wednesdays, the days that I teach at night, I cap it.

At two o'clock that I cut it off then and then at two o'clock I get outside, I go for a walk, I go get my food for dinner. I just do me self-care stuff, roller skating, whatever during that time that I can feel a little bit recharge that when I come back to teaching on Zoom or refreshed now, I kinda encourage anybody to look at each day that way.

Kind of time blocking and. Studio owners putting time in there to [00:21:00] work on your business, work on your strategies, work on your marketing, work on all the things that your great business coach has told you to do, instead of feeling frazzled when you're forward thinking, calm, collected, organized, that's when the magic happens.

When everybody's trained, everybody knows their place, it just brings ease and order into the business that you're not on reaction mode and you're not in that place of, and me of you may be familiar with this shit, I've gotta pay the rent next month. Let's do a sale, let's do a fi, let's do a quick.

Punch pass sale because right then you get just in this reactionary mode where all your clients get used to you just waiting until you have a sale, that's not gonna build your business. That's not gonna build your community, systems, please listen to the backlog of all the great [00:22:00] conversations of this.

This podcast I'm just yaking today just based on a lot of conversations I've been having this week and just seeing the difference between calm, collected, and frazzled. Reactionary. Just know if you are on that spectrum of , reactionary. There is help out there. A good yoga coach will help you and if if you're not sure about that, any of us coaches out there offer a free consultation just to see if we're a fit to help you start your business, reset your business, grow your business to the next level. Just know there's help out there. And I know I, when I work with my clients, I try not to be an expense.

I try to be an asset that makes them money and not make mistakes or Help avoid making mistakes and just fast tracking to where you want [00:23:00] to get to, and overcoming the areas where you need a little bit of help. You can head over to my website, which is yoga biz camp.com.

You can have a poke through there. There's a whole bunch of free reurces on there. There's a link to answering a few quick questions on my consulting page and to a free chat with me to see if there's any. Way that I can possibly help you. In the meantime, you are going to get lots of free reurces on this podcast and on my Instagram page.

I do the stories at Yoga Biz Champ. Thank you to listening to just me rambling today. And I hope you get a little bit of mething about this, about feeling a little bit of calm for your business.