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The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast

Helping yoga teachers to stay connected to information, entrepreneur advice and a community of supportive yoga teachers and professionals.
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Now displaying: April, 2020
Apr 27, 2020

The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast

166: When & How to Hire a VA (virtual assistant) with Sandra Booker

 

Description:

Running a yoga business is more than just teaching yoga classes. From scheduling and collecting payments, to sales and marketing, to promotion and logistics, we may find ourselves needing help with different elements of running a business. That’s where a Virtual Assistant (VA) can come in handy, but where do we start?

 

Sandra Booker is the founder of Any Old Task, where she provides small business owners with Business Support and Assistant Services. She specializes in workflow and process review, and helps streamline business processes and develop efficient workflows to keep things organized and on track. She also helps startup VAs generate the same kind of raving clientele she enjoys in her own business as part of her work at VA Studio. 

 

Do you really need a VA or you need to look at your own productivity? What should you look at before hiring a VA? How much would a VA cost? Where can you find them, and what are some questions you should ask before hiring? Sandra answers all of our questions about bringing a VA onto your team, and shares some of the benefits that having a VA on your team could provide.

 

If you’ve ever thought about bringing in help into your business but aren’t sure what that would look like, this episode will be an eye-opener.

 

Key Takeaways:

[10:33] Shannon introduces her guest for this episode - Sandra Booker.

[12:05] What is the work that Sandra does and who does she do it for?

[14:22] How can yoga business owners tell when they need to hire a VA?

[16:49] Sandra clarifies when someone might need an OBM vs a VA.

[18:09] How much do VAs charge?

[21:08] Sandra also teaches VAs how to build up their own practice.

[23:39] How specialized should your VA be?

[26:44] How can we prepare to hire a VA?

[29:31] It can be hard to give up tasks that we're so used to doing. How can we decide what to keep and what to give up?

[32:55] Shannon and Sandra discuss some of the benefits of having a VA on your team.

[39:15] What are some things we need to do prior to hiring a VA?

[43:31] Sandra has some tips around when you might start looking for a VA.

[47:50] Your job posting can include some screening questions to filter out applicants to hire.

[50:07] Sandra offers her prospective clients a call to assess if they are a fit for her VA services.

[52:43] How else can you find a VA? Sandra has some suggestions about how to find a VA who is a fit for you and your business.

[55:06] Sandra has a few final tips for anyone thinking about hiring a VA.

[59:08] Get in touch with Sandra via her website or email.

[59:38] Shannon shares her key takeaways from this episode.



Links:

 

Gratitude to our Sponsor Schedulicity

 

Quotes from this episode:

 

"What goals are you working towards right now? What do you need in order to achieve those goals? And what are you missing, what's holding you back?"

 

"Always be aware of what the goals of the person you're about to hire are."

 

"All-in-ones don't work. They don't work with shampoo, they don't work with VAs."

 

"If you have anything less than 10 hrs of work to hand off to somebody a month, you probably don't really need a VA yet."

 

Apr 20, 2020

The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast

165: Offer Online Yoga Masterclass with Shannon Crow & Amanda McKinney

 

Description:

Living in this crisis state of the global COVID-19 pandemic is becoming our new normal, and as yoga teachers, we are all trying to adapt. More of us are switching to offering yoga online, and this can be a challenge to most, if not all of us. Recently, Shannon got together with her biz bestie Amanda McKinney to host a masterclass on the topic of offering online yoga.

 

This is a replay of that masterclass in which Shannon and Amanda answer some of the questions they were receiving from yoga teachers who wanted to know how to get online and teach online in a really quick way. On this episode, Shannon and Amanda outline the first steps to get started in taking your yoga online and offering yoga to your students virtually.

 

Regardless of whether you’ve never done a live video on a social media platform or you’ve had some experience on video and want to offer group or 1:1 lessons on Zoom, or you want to go to the next level by putting your videos on YouTube - this episode is for you.

 

Key Takeaways:

[7:35] Shannon introduces the topic for this episode - a masterclass about offering yoga online.

[9:12] Offering yoga online is all about taking it step-by-step, starting with what you have.

[10:16] Level 1 - If you've never worked with video before, this is where you can start.

[11:24] Where should you start? Amanda recommends starting with live videos for a variety of reasons.

[13:06] Shannon has some tips about going live.

[16:56] Level 2 - You've worked with video before and are more comfortable with it, but you're looking for an option to work with students either 1:1 or in a group setting. This is where you can use Zoom.

[18:36] Shannon highlights how useful having a recording of your classes can be.

[21:50] How can you use Apple TV with Zoom?

[25:10] Should you be offering yoga for free or charging the same?

[28:01] Amanda suggests finding a partner to practice with Zoom before launching it to your students.

[31:50] What tech should you use to take your yoga classes online? Use what you have!

[33:59] The next level is using YouTube, which can be a fantastic resource.

[37:58] There are many benefits to YouTube but you have to decide what's best for your students right now.

[39:16] Shannon shares some of the feedback from yoga teachers who have started teaching online after this Masterclass.

[41:50] Shannon shares more about her new idea, The Connected Yoga Teacher Collective (TCYT Collective).



Links:

 

Gratitude to our Sponsor Schedulicity

 

Quotes from this episode:

 

"Start free, and start where you're comfortable." - Shannon

 

"What people really want is connection." - Shannon

 

"Don't assume that your students don't know anything about technology." - Amanda

 

"We do things for free all the time, but make sure that you are also taking care of your business as well." - Amanda

 

"Use what you have to figure out what you need." - Amanda

Apr 13, 2020

The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast

164: Deepen Your Yoga Practice with Barrie Risman

 

Description:

As yoga teachers, how can we deepen our own yoga practice so that we can teach from a place of authenticity? In between juggling our many commitments and responsibilities, particularly in this challenging time in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can often fall away from our own practice of yoga. However, we all know that there are so many benefits to having a regular yoga practice, and deepening it. Barrie Risman shares her new book, Evolving Your Yoga: Ten Principles for Enlightened Practice, on how to take your yoga practice deeper.

 

Barrie Risman has been a dedicated student of Iyengar Yoga for more than 25 years, and teaching for almost 2 decades. As the creator of The Skillful Yogi, an online practice and study community of yoga students and teachers from around the globe, Barrie offers a uniquely accessible, authentic and integrated approach to yoga. Her book, Evolving Your Yoga is a guide for teachers and students to deepen, expand, and integrate the benefits of yoga in their lives. 

 

We can go deeper in our practice without necessarily doing more or working harder, or even achieving more difficult poses. Barrie talks to us about how to stay interested in our practice, how to make time for personal practice and why that’s so important to being a yoga teacher. She also shares some tips on how to take your practice deeper, and really highlights that it's not just about doing more trainings and getting more certifications.

 

As all of us grapple with this current situation, this episode could provide some guidance on how to stick to and deepen your yoga practice.

 

Key Takeaways:

[7:06] Shannon introduces her guest for this episode.

[8:29] How did Barrie get started with yoga?

[10:52] What is the work that Barrie does now and who does she do it for?

[15:23] What is something that helps Barrie propel her yoga business forward?

[17:36] How can we deepen our yoga practice?

[21:41] Barrie recommends going back to what made you fall in love with yoga in the first place.

[24:00] Shannon shares how she incorporates self-reflection into her own daily practice.

[24:57] What are Barrie's thoughts on yoga teachers always reaching for the next training to feel like they're adequate enough?

[31:05] What did it look like when Barrie was a full time yoga teacher, and what brought in the biggest portion of her income?

[33:18] Barrie shares more about the membership aspect of her business.

[38:02] There is something for everyone in Barrie's membership - it's not exclusively for yoga teachers.

[39:40] What does it look like behind the scenes for Barrie in terms of making content?

[41:35] How do people in Barrie's group connect with each other?

[42:53] What helps Barrie make so much content?

[45:01] Barrie walks us through what a day and week look like in terms of her routine.

[47:14] Creating content is a lot about discipline and less about creativity - like yoga.

[51:40] What are some other tips that Barrie has for yoga teacher trying to grow their business?

[53:38] What are your key takeaways about how you can deepen your own yoga practice?

 

Links:

 

Gratitude to our Sponsor Schedulicity

 

Quotes from this episode:

 

"I really dedicated and prioritized time to going deeper into my own experience of yoga and learning from that, and trusting that as a source of wisdom."

 

"We can go deeper in our practice without necessarily doing more or working harder, or achieving more difficult poses."

 

"We need to really expand our ideas of what practice looks like, and just doing that helps us deepen our practice."

 

"The prerequisite for being a student of yoga is the willingness to begin again."

 

"The question is not if we're going to get disconnected from our practice, it's when, and how are we going to bring ourselves back once we've done that."

 

"Yoga is not just what we do. It's how we reflect and learn from what we do."

 

Apr 6, 2020

The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast

163: Collective Yoga Studio Model with Jenifer Parker

 

Description:

Yoga studios are run in many different ways, from a single owner who may or may not be a yoga teacher, to partnerships between different yoga teachers, and even franchises. On this episode, we’re exploring a different model for yoga studios with Jenifer Parker - the collective yoga studio model.

 

Jenifer Parker is the Director of Healium, a yoga studio within the context of a holistic health collective in Wellington, New Zealand that she has been running for 10 years. She has been a full time yoga teacher for about 20 years, and has run multiple collective yoga studios with different yoga teachers in different parts of the world in her yoga career.

 

A collective yoga studio is a unique model that Jenifer found worked best to address the challenges she was facing as a yoga professional. Through her experiences, she has collected a wealth of information on the legality and logistics of setting up and running a collective. She explains how a collective works, what you need to form it, as well as some of the details of the operations and what it really takes to run a yoga studio in this way.

 

Challenges help us think outside the box, and Jenifer’s experience is testament to that. If you have been looking for creative ways to think outside the box and create a very different yoga studio model, perhaps even something that could be applied online, this episode is for you.

 

Key Takeaways:

[7:30] Shannon introduces her guest for this episode - Jenifer Parker.

[8:47] What does Jenifer do and who does she do it for?

[12:23] What is Jenifer's current model with her yoga studio and why did she choose it?

[18:55] There is sometimes a fear around yoga teachers working together, but there is more room for collaboration than we might think.

[21:59] Jenifer shares some of the details of her collective.

[27:15] A special message from our sponsor, Yomassage.

[29:29] Jenifer highlights some of the benefits of the collective yoga studio model to both students and the teachers.

[33:12] Jenifer eventually moved to New Zealand and had to sell her yoga businesses.

[35:01] The legal structure of a collective is very different. Jenifer shares some of her challenges in setting up the collective yoga studio model when she moved to New Zealand.

[40:40] Jenifer explains how she started her collective in New Zealand with one other yoga teacher, and how that model has evolved since it started a year ago.

[44:06] What has Jenifer's experience been as a yoga studio without premises?

[52:19] Being transparent with her community has helped ease the transition for Jenifer. She shares how the community has responded to the changes she's implementing going forward. 

[55:45] What are some of Jennifer's tips for yoga teachers who are considering starting a collective?

[59:10] How did Jenifer manage the legal side of running a collective yoga studio?

[1:01:24] You can always hire experts to help with the legal and accounting side of running a collective.

[1:04:52] Find out more about Jenifer's collective yoga studio by visiting her website.

[1:07:10] Shannon shares a few things that are helping her right now.

 

Links:

 

Gratitude to our Sponsor Schedulicity and Yomassage

 

Quotes from this episode:

 

"The collective model ... creates less administrative work and more opportunity for people to work together and to have the outreach that they want." ~ Jenifer Parker

 

"We need everyone to solve the problems. We need all the generations of yoga teachers to solve problems." ~ Jenifer Parker

 

"The hardest thing is making sure that you have really clear communication with the people that you're working with." ~ Jenifer Parker

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