The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Yoga Business

By Rachel Holmes

No yoga teacher wants to deal with marketing. Most instructors still have trouble with asking for money for the classes they teach. The problem is that you won't be teaching long, if you do it for free. Unfortunately, all of us need money to live. Paul Jerard often compares teachers to authors. The point is: Writing a book is a lot of work, but marketing the book is also a full-time job and a completely different skill.

There are many opportunities for teachers and 90% of them are outside the studios. Most of us don't own a studio, so we teach at health clubs, dance academies, schools of all kinds, community centers, chiropractic clinics, corporate facilities, senior centers, and many more locations. The most lucrative of them all is corporate yoga classes.

Corporate Opportunities For Yoga Teachers

Today's corporations are becoming more aware of how detrimental employee stress is to job productivity and company profitability. Happily, this has led to the current trend of providing employees with stress-release helps at work, including yoga classes. Often classes are held before or after work hours or during the lunchtime hours when employees have a bit of space in their schedule to participate. In this post, learn how to begin taking your yoga practice into the corporate arena.

Know Where to Look for Opportunities

The new theories of social networks suggest that most opportunities for booking corporate yoga classes are likely to exist within your existing social networks.

Here are some great ideas for leveraging your existing contacts for new job leads:

- Call your old employers and offer your services.

- Ask your colleagues and peers for a contact in their company's human relations department.

- Ask your students for the same.

- Research local companies that offer corporate wellness programming or have won awards like "best place to work" and reach out to them.

- Reach out via social media and ask your online networks for referrals.

How to Get the Gig

Once you have a contact list, you need to do one last thing before you reach out - know what you are offering and how much you are charging for it. This can be tricky, especially if you are a newly minted yoga instructor.

Here are some tips for how to prepare your presentation:

- Identify the ideal class size per class and the minimum classroom size to accommodate that number of students.

- Set your rates (common ways include by the class or by the number of students).

By following these steps, you can enjoy teaching yoga to employees who truly need you!

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