Yoga Ideas on a Budget: Dream Big, Start Smart

Starting any business can be rough. Even if you’ve done it before, you’ll never know what will happen with the present one. New surprises will always arise and they will cost you. To survive your critical first year, you’ll need a plan, a budget, and a lot of self-discipline. What if you have big plans and small funds? How do you adjust? 

From my little nook in the internet I was able to create content and present my live classes to potential clients all over my city.

If you have a big endgame planned for your career, my best advice is to take small steps to get there. For me, my desired destination is a studio by the sea. I neither have the chosen part of the sea, nor the seeds to get started. So I decided to teach and build my name up bit by bit. I started with a website. With as little as 200€ I constructed a website from scratch. From my little nook in the internet I was able to create content and present my live classes to potential clients all over my city–– sometimes internationally. It was a wonderful stepping stone to get my name out there for such a reasonable price. 

In this article, we will talk about some ideas on how you, as a yoga teacher, can spread yourself out career-wise  without breaking the bank. 

Website Creation

As I’ve said above, Creating a website means creating a visual version of your professional self for the internet. It’s essentially inexpensive to do. Through Wix, I currently pay about 180€ a year for my website. I chose wix because it was the most affordable even with the bells and whistles I had on my site ( multi-language plug-in)  . It took me about a month to  slowly learn the features of the platform and finally create something I was happy with. Nowadays website builders like Wordpress, Godaddy and Squarespace, etc. do most of the heavy lifting for you. Including a layman-friendly interface for easy maintenance. As an outlet for your professional capability, a website can potentially open many Indoors for you without investing a lot of money in a design. All you need is to show who you are, what you do, the classes you teach, the events you may have, and a contact. You don’t have to offer everything. You just need to point people in the direction  you want them to go. Here’s a link to a comparison site for the different kinds of website builders out there.

Writing

Since the boom of blogs, vlogs and Instagram, Content creation has always been the fuel that kept our fire going. Why not? Its free, and it is a creative way to put your stuff out there. The thing is, these days, it’s getting more pricey to create a professional look. Why? Professional imagery means professional equipment or access to stock photos and music. Then again, writing will always be available to us. It was as a writer that I was able to get international recognition for my yoga practice/teachings ( Thank you Momoyoga! ). How did I get started? I signed up with a freelance platform where businesses and independent professionals connect and collaborate remotely. By registering with Fiverr or Peopleperhour, we can look for jobs within our skillset. Best part is, registration is free. All you have to do is make a presentable resume’. As for me, I can say that this has provided me with some seed money to spend or add to my savings. More importantly, after three years I improved ( or created )  a skill for myself. IF you want to get started on freelance work here’s a great article on all the stuff out there.

Private Classes 

Another way you can grab your profession by the horns is with Private classes. These days more and more yoga teachers opt to do door-to-door private classes than open a yoga studio. You charge more and can plan more personalized classes for your students. You also don’t have to be an expert or a yoga therapist to be successful. Most potential students don’t know anything about yoga but prefer one-on-one classes because they feel that they can absorb the lessons better. All you’ll need is a website and to be active in a yoga community so you can advertise your services. Facebook groups is the most economic way to find clients. Check with the group’s administrator so you can ask about their ad policy. They’ll be more than willing to help you out. You can also check out Co-working spaces with a gym, or gyms that rent out their Zumba spaces to yoga teachers. Again private classes give you such a wide berth because you can virtually do it anywhere and will only cost more time than money to do.

Live Online Classes

Yes there is a platform for everything. Online teaching has attracted many a tech-savvy yoga teacher as their yellow fiber-optic road.  Internet hubbs like Skype coupled with facebook ads, Superprof, the only online tutoring community that supports yoga teachers who want to teach live virtual classes and Namastream to create online courses. Basically, you make a sequence of teaching videos with live chats to update your students. All these advances have made their mark on the yoga community. While the latter may cost more to start up as you will need some equipment to shoot your material, again you don’t have to spend alot. You just need something that functions. If you’d like to know more about online classes, Here’s the reference of my previous article on setting up online classes. 

Making Sequences

About a year ago, I stumbled upon a job ad through a freelance platform where my employer just wanted yoga sequences. Something for him to do at home or during his travels when he’s stuck in a hotel. I thought it was just a fluke. Later on, I saw more job listings such as these pop up on freelance job searches. The common denominators that I’ve observed with these jobs, was that the client will do the sequence emailed via pdf through Tummee ( a sequence builder ), then a day or so later there will be a teacher-student discussion on how the practice went. You get paid by the session or a monthly fee that you both set and that’s it. You have a client. A Tummee subscription is about 4.95 a month billed annually. That’s only 59.40 a year. So either you as a teacher find and apply for these jobs as they come up or put the ad out there. 

Short-term Workshops

The business model of workshop creation is a wonderful way for you and your students to dive deeper into your methods as an instructor. It costs nothing to create, and can potentially create an avenue for quick success to your business. For one thing, it has a finite outcome, and depending on your marketing, the Potential clients knotty what they’re getting. Nobody likes surprises when it comes to their money. To advertise your workshops ( assuming you’ve found the perfect yoga respite for your course), there are sites like Bookyogaretreats, Wetravel, or Retreatours that can help you get everything off the ground. To get you started here is an insightful piece written by one of our very own At Momoyoga, Izzy Arcoleo.

For a finite course or retreat, marketing your intensive-one-of-a-kind classes allows you to be free of being tied down to a studio, and charge more for exclusivity.

Let’s review. The theme of our discussion is about making your own destiny while being practical. Creating a website is probably one of the most important facets of our profession and it doesn’t have to cost much to be beautiful. A site  opens doors for us as well as lets us visualize our career path the more we work on it. Writing, for platforms and writing for yourself in a blog or in a social media post allows us to reach a more profound level with our readers/potential clients while we have another source of income. Live online classes is basically personal training in a virtual setting. A slowly rising trend especially here in Europe. While online live classes is a bit more personal, offering emailed yoga sequences while you touch base with your student every 2 days. This is probably for the more independent pupil. Lastly and probably the most lucrative, Short-term workshops. For a finite course or retreat, marketing your intensive-one-of-a-kind classes allows you to be free of being tied down to a studio, and charge more for exclusivity. 

Technically, You can do all or one of these. My suggestion is to concentrate on one thing at a time to see if it works according to your needs. The bottom line is that you don’t have to drain your money to make money. Apart from that not making much sense, it is absolutely unnecessary. All you need is a budget, a  little creativity, and keep yourself updated on services that can potentially help you.