Tuesday Nov. 10, 2009 The Business of Yoga Presented by Avi Arjit

1. The BUSINESS of Yoga is as similar as it is different from any other business. However, we find that the approach or the mind set with which many yoga business owners approach or implement this business is unique.

3. Now for this to happen you do not necessarily have to do well. Your ads and hype that you create will be taken as a sign of success, and your competition will be ready to open one ASAP . If this is the case, what should we do? Well although it is spiritual to stay in the present, it is also practical to think of the future. What if a competitor opens at a location nearby? Will you be able to sustain your revenues to pay your basics? If yes, then how? Would you have something nobody else can copy? Common misconception. Will you be banking on a team of spiritually dedicated people?

4. Always a great starting point is to start with a team motivated from within, but to think this that cannot be copied is wrong ... Then what? The other side of yoga, and a business, is a business of people, of relationships. Your yoga studio, your self and your students are related in many ways. They come to you before they start their day or at the end of a stressful day to find solace. The studio in their neighborhood is their place of refuge. So is your location peaceful, and does it bring to others a sense of peace and have they have escaped from their daily tensions?

5. People including yourself sometimes don’t realize how many guru’s are in their lives. Humans are such that if they find a guru, then they are very happy with him or her. But, if at any time the guru does something human, they are dropped from the pedestal that was created in people’s minds. The business of yoga is a business where the CEO or yoga guru or yoga teacher is the one who is respected, observed, and responsible for each and every thing that the yoga student or client feels ...

6. Additional sources of income Some big businesses have understood the idea and the benefit of yoga retreats by a yoga studio Benefits? 1. Community building: The clients or yogis who go together on a spiritual yoga retreat are bonded like a family because of the experience. Hence, the branding of your studio as the one which gave this experience and family to them is in-comparable for community building. 2. Retreats help you make an additional source of revenue. The first few retreats can be done by the owner/founder. Then, each retreat can happen every few months and teachers can take the students out to the experience. This also helps students bond with the studio. Their affinity, relation, and loyalty with the studios gets so deep that they keep coming back for more.

7. The business of yoga can be treated either as an extension of their fitness gym or an alternate source of health. When you are starting this business, you must understand you are taking on a very karmic motivating profession, where your involvement reaches far behind the physical stretching of the student. The idea is to keep your teachers busy. 1. Your neighborhood offices are all aware of corporate yoga programs and these should be offered first for free and then charge later for stress programs. 2. Yoga classes for kids are important and they should be, after all it is that age when all good and bad habits are formed and every family likes to invest in their kids growth, both mental and spiritual and you must try to have kids yoga programs in your community.

8. A community yoga centre is a place where the community comes to talk, interact and find peace. It serves as a socializing place, where every community event like Canada day, x-mas parties or days defined to different nationalities are celebrated. The local yoga studio must make its presence felt by participating, advertising or sending their teachers/being present in branded clothes/material to inform, teach, spread the light and the awareness of your studio’s message. It is seen mostly that the community events are associated by the human mind, as happy events, and seeing brands in happy events are usually retained in their brain, as happy brands and happy people are easy to work with.

9. Most yoga studios offer the same yoga services to their clients. They perhaps do not recognize it, but their clients know it and don’t perceive their services as any different from others, for example an ad saying: All day Vinyasa and Hatha yoga classes under $10 per class This ad is not understood by a yoga novice. S/He does not understand why your ad or service is different from the others seen daily. So, make your ad unique make it different from others. Example of a different ad: Family yoga classes -husband wife and kids yoga...all types and styles offered This ad is plain simple and conveys the messages to the audience easily.

10. A yoga website - I cannot emphasize enough the importance of your yoga website and its online marketing. A lot of people work on a great yoga shop front, a great décor, but you have more clients outside as non-members than members and the non-members are looking online for a studio that they would want to join … so you need to be online. A great presence does not mean you spend a lot of money but you need to be there nevertheless.

11. Many people make a great website but then follow it up with 2 basic mistakes: 1.They do not update it often 2.They do not market it Both of the above basic mistakes yield zero traffic or visibility on the internet. The yoga on the web or your yoga business on the web is as crucial if not more than your yoga business as a brick and mortar store. There are some brilliant yoga websites, which take their online work very seriously. Some of them are: http://www.thepoweryogaco.com/ http://www.sivananda.org/london/ http://www.yogapure.co.uk/?gclid=CPzM-7PT_Z0CFZcwpAodsV8joQ