Author: Lisé Kuecker

So the 9 to 5 hamster wheel you’ve been flying on is suddenly not looking so great. And, you’re finding the highlight of your week are the Pilates classes you’ve been taking. You may have even started a certification just so you could learn a little bit more…for yourself of course {and with a big dream that maybe, just maybe, this could be something more}.

 

When I started my first Pilates certification, I was running my first company, a technology business based out of Boston and New Orleans. I said everything to myself about what this pass was…I missed dancing; my body loved Pilates; I just wanted to learn a little more for me. Of course, I wasn’t going to turn it into a business.

 

Six businesses and several million dollars later, I’ve learned a valuable lesson.   Doing what you love, what you are truly passionate is the greatest way you can ever build a business. My experience taught me that there are three important things you should do to prepare for your transition from a passionate practitioner to a studio owner.

 

Ease out of your Job and Into Your Career: When I first started teaching Pilates, I began with small teaching assignments and eventually grew to a fifteen to twenty class per week schedule that alternated with training clients in a small group setting. At this point, I still had another company I was working with albeit very limited. By the time I was ready to start my first Pilates business, I had spent four and a half years teaching and training.   {Fact} You don’t four and a half years to make this transition. Getting married, Hurricane Katrina, moving across the country and having a baby all factored into my journey.

 

This transition time was invaluable in giving me the funds to pursue training, startup capitol, and, frankly, the experience to know what my clients would really be looking for. I’ve met many other instructors, who gradually built a following through privates and group classes before opening studios. The morale of this story…it’s not just okay to take time easing out of your corporate life…it can benefit the career you’re building. But while you’re easing out of your current job it’s crucial to…

 

Map Out Your Ideal Weekly Calendar: What does your dream week look like? And, by dream week, I mean a week that is rooted in reality. As you ease out of your job and into your career as a studio owner, you’ll need to know what your week can handle at each stage. Do you have a family or additional responsibilities you need to consider? Are your clients primarily morning people or night owls? What does your current job require hours wise for your week? Knowing your parameters when and how can you begin to expand your teaching career? With every class you teach, you will grow not only your skillset, but also your tribe. But, as you expand your hours and your tribe it’s crucial to…

 

Prioritize Your Practice.   I remember the moment that my passion for Pilates became a career choice. At that point, my focus changed from my personal practice to my client’s practice. It took almost two years to realize that without prioritizing my personal practice, my business {and my clients} suffered. How can you build in time today for your practice? This isn’t just about keeping your body in top physical shape. It’s about creating new movement patterns, practicing with seasoned instructors, learning new cues, and identifying body issues that you may not have seen before. Prioritizing your practice can be as simple {and expensive} as a Pilates Anytime membership that you use, as localized as trading sessions with an instructor you admire, or as adventurous as a Pilates retreat in a dream location.

 

These three steps will help to transform your Pilates passion into a career. By taking it one step at a time, you’ll find yourself making this transition with grace, rather than stress. And, you’ll have a firm foundation to build a business that’s quite simply amazing!

 

I can’t wait to see what you do to turn your passion into reality! Email us at hello@lisekuecker.com and share your story, connect with us on Instagram and Facebook and sign up for the Kismet Club where we share our biggest and best ideas!

You’ve fallen in love. Downward Dog, Shavasana, Crow Pose, and every inversion you have tried have changed your life. They’ve even begin to change the lives of everyone around you. How couldn’t they? This ancient practice is meant to transform our bodies and our minds. And in the midst of this transformation of your mind and body, you see the transformation possibilities in your career…could you spend your life changing the world around you for the better?

 

The answer is undoubtedly, yes, so long as you step into this change with a clear plan of success in mind. The passion you feel now is about ready to become a business, which means that you will suddenly have profits, employees, schedules and, most importantly, clients, first and foremost on your mind.

 

The greatest studios I’ve walked into understand how to balance this passion and their business, so everything can blossom. They’ve built their business on seven pillars of success and so can you.

 

The Seven Pillars of a Successful Yoga Studio are:

 

1. Soulful Sales: Throw away everything you’ve ever thought about old school sales. In 2015, our sales process looks a lot less Used Car and a lot more Education. You see in a small business, you’re going to where many hats, the most important of which will be to produce revenue. We do that by selling, but my version of sales is focused on connecting my client with a service that meets their deepest needs and desires. It starts with learning what my client really wants, where they’ve been and using my education to shape their path forward. My ability to teach each client that walks through my door how they can get the results they want is sales…soulful sales that change lives and bodies for the better.

 

2. Programming for the People: You got into this to change lives. The key to changing lives is building programs that change the lives of your Core Clients. Who are your Core Clients? Well the answer is different for every business, but Core Clients are the primary people our business serves. If your yoga studio focuses on weight loss, your Core Client will be trying to lose weight; if it’s baby yoga, your Core Client is a new parent. Once you know your Core Client, your programming will flow, because it will be created for them, with their desires and results in mind. Now, there’s always tweaks to be had, but that’s the fun of running your own studio!

 

3. Heart Centered Operations: Every business can ultimately be judged based on the systems it follows or ignores. In the United States, 80% of small businesses will close in the first year. Why is that number so high? Most of these businesses failed to recognize that the mastery of systems from sales, to programming, to employee training matters. These can all be done with a heart centered approach…what truly matters is that they are there!

 

 

4. Marketing Mastery: {Truth} Constructing a clear marketing plan matters to your business. Brand marketing has to speak to your Core Client, to their innermost desires in a voice they will recognize. And, that’s just the first step. With a clear brand, you can tackle your best marketing resources, be they virtual or traditional, with abloom. And, don’t forget. When creating your marketing plan, your greatest marketing resource is within your four walls. Nothing is more powerful than the voice of a client who has seen results and power of your practice.

 

5. Facilities that Inspire: It generally goes without saying that an amazing yoga studio has an environment of peace, positive energy, and joy. So as you’re dreaming of your studio, ask yourself, what features do I want to have to make my clients feel amazing? This is where great facilities start. I love doing a walk through of “sister brands” that have the same vibe I treasure. What do they look like? What is the feel they have? What colors do they use? It all starts with a wide open imagination, so dream big baby!

 

6. Finances First: As soon as you open a business for profit, your finances begin to truly matter. Do you have the resources to open this studio? By resources, I mean money that you can live on while the studio isn’t profitable in early months. What is your budget for the business opening? Is it realistic? Now is a time to introduce yourself to other small businesses in your area and find out average lease rates, electrical bills and country or parish taxes. Speak to yoga studios around the country on their start up costs so that you have a firm grasp on where you need to be to make this a success.

 

 

7. Back Office Administration: I have a back office administration team that rivals the best. My accountants, bookkeeper, metrics guru and housekeepers keep me in a great place to run my business successfully. Why are these jobs so important? These time consuming jobs are crucial to your business, but they don’t produce any revenue and take you away from your clients, your purpose and your team. They are the first things I delegate in my client’s businesses and in my own. Taking these off your plate can put you back to work at changing your community one life at a time.

 

I can’t wait to see what you do to turn your passion into reality! Email us at hello@lisekuecker.com and share your story, connect with us on Instagram and Facebook and sign up for the Kismet Club where we share our biggest and best ideas!

 

 

I’m a numbers girl. No, that’s an understatement. I live and die by the numbers when it comes to my business {Quote by the husband}. You see, I step foot in my businesses just a few times a year, and without numbers to guide me, I would have no idea how to grow my businesses, coach my employees, or see the holes in my enterprise. Like them or not, they are a requirement for business leaders. With them, a true and accurate picture will be revealed.

 

Before I start, buy, or invest in a business, I must fully and completely understand its Base Operating Expenses. “Base what” you say? By Base Operating Expenses, I mean the core expenses necessary to run a business, and here are my two primary assumptions:

 

1. Unchanging or at the Lowest Possible Expense
2. Going to be carried with me through the long-term life of my business.

 

For example, if tomorrow I wanted to open a yoga or pilates studio, I would research demographics and locations while building a simple spreadsheet to aid me in the decision making process. Equally important is identifying and assessing the expected Base Operating Expenses, which will drive negotiations and ultimately a decision. Controlling those expenses will be the most significant factor in breaking even and advancing your profit margins quickly. Even with lower sales and lagging or nonexistent growth, profitably — or even survival — can be achieved with base expenses controlled.

 

But, what if you’re like many people I’ve met, or even one of the failing businesses I bought.

 

• You leased a spot from a lovely realtor, who didn’t ever ask if the rent really worked in your business model, or worse yet, pushed you to take a higher rent than you should have or forgot to negotiate any help with your buildout;.
• You hired too many employees to start and your payroll (and the taxes that come with it) are through the roof; or
• You bought every piece of equipment that came recommended (trust me, I understand the temptation of buying the really pretty and shiny new equipment), but now your equipment lease is eating up every dollar that you should be paying yourself with.

 

At about this time, you might be thinking that owning a business might not be for you and that working for someone else is starting to sound pretty good. If you are, know that you are not alone. I, for one, have been there – done that – have the t-shirt to prove it.

 

{Silver Lining} Know that even the worst scenarios can be turned around. Be rest assured that, although it can be scary and far from easy, there is light (and money) at the end of the tunnel. Success can be right around the corner.

 

Whether you are starting from scratch, or starting over, we’ll need to harness those expenses by applying the following three key steps.

 

1. Lay out clear financial picture of these expenses. The first thing I do with clients is to map every possible expense, and by map out, I mean literally draw it out as a picture. Here are the types of expenses I am talking about:

 

• your rent and insurance
• your utilities
• if you’re an instructor, your Continuing Ed costs
• your taxes

 

The list goes on and on. If you’re not sure where to start, return to the two Base Operating Expenses I identified above and ask yourself if each expense falls into those categories. If so, then add it to the list. ** Remember, if you’re waiting to open your business, ask your potential landlord for these expenses from prior tenants or for contact information of current tenants.

 

2. Highlight the Negotiable Expenses. From my perspective, all of your expenses will fall into two categories: static or negotiable. As frustrating as my electric bill is at times, the only way to negotiate it is to move to a smaller space. It’s a “static expense” or an expense that does not have the ability to be changed.   A static expense can fluctuate, like an electric bill going up and down depending on the weather, but unless you have far greater pull than I do, the president of the electric company isn’t going to suddenly change the rate at which you’re billed.

Negotiable expenses are often non-fluctuating, but can be changed or altered with negotiation. Just as you initially negotiated for your rent or your insurance, you have the ability to renegotiate based on your current situation or the market. Just in the last month, I’ve negotiated in the upper five figures in rent reduction, not to mention monies for improvements, all on existing leases. I view that money saved as profit earned since now you’ll be keeping that money in your bank account (or giving yourself a well earned raise).

 

3. Get Ready to Negotiate.   Negotiating is an art, not a science, so I can’t tell you every step you will need to take to be successful. Also remember that the best negotiators are generally the best educators. But more specifically, you’ll want to answer the following questions before initiating negotiations.

• What are the current market rates for the service you are negotiating? If every building in your town is leasing for lower money or your instructors are earning double dollars of everyone else in town, you likely have room to move and by showing the current rates you’ll lay out a far better case.

 

• What have you put into this service or person? If you have referred business after business to your accountants, now is the time to have those names.   Your money, input, and influence can build other businesses, assist employees in growing new skills, or add value to someone else’s property.

 

• What is the end dollar amount you want and what are you willing to compromise in order to get there? Are you willing to offer your front desk worker more vacation time for a lower rate, or have your metrics person work from home in order to avoid a costly commute? Give and take matters here, and when you bring something of value to the negotiating table, you are far less likely to be rebuffed.

 

So, what happens if you get to the end and you realize you are wrong person negotiations? That’s when you find someone who will stand strong for you and your businesses. I have hired others to negotiate fees with lawyers, just as I’ve been hired to renegotiate lease rates and redefine employee agreements and pay. And, the savings received and created were worth every penny.

 

Keep these lessons in mind as you contemplate your business’s next chapter. But remember, the best negotiators are the best educators. Take your time preparing these three steps and you’ll be well on the way to higher profits and bigger paychecks!

In spite of being a girl with a serious high heel problem, my favorite trips growing up were always to national parks. By the end of the bohemian 1970’s, my parents had spent more than a few months packed in a VW Van heading from the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone; Yosemite to Bryce; from home to anywhere with a view that they could admire. So I was extremely excited when upon marrying a Minnesotan, I would be at least a few times a year within driving distance of the natural treasure known as Ely.

 

The beautiful town of Ely lies in the wild part of northern Minnesota. Other than by snowmobile, I’m not even sure how accessible it is in the winter, when snow blankets the ground and ice bars it’s tributaries. But, during the summer, adventurers flock to this small outpost to enter the wild in canoes and kayaks throughout the Boundary Waters separating Minnesota from Canada. Although immensely beautiful, it is incredibly isolated. Like most boundaries, the area offers the opportunity to be a great gift if we take a moment to step back and recognize that limitations, whether self imposed or forced upon us, many times act as a safety net to mitigate – or negate – risk.

 

Especially when it comes to my life, I have not often been a fan of boundaries. My philosophy has generally consisted of the “I can do anything” attitude. Whether its starting a business or serving as a foster care parent, I can create any opportunity or take on any responsibility. Let’s throw caution to the wind, because the world is my oyster, right? Well, maybe not exactly. What happens when suddenly your “I can do anything” actually becomes everything you do. What’s the consequence of your business controlling 24 hours of your day, every day of the year?

 

Opportunities without margins lead to exhaustion while the responsibilities you were so eager to take on, left unchecked, become your new prison.

 

As an employee in a traditional job, you are presented a preset boundary list. For each of our employees, the contract stipulates duties and responsibilities. The document details their hours, responsibilities, expectations, and even their vacation time. But as an entrepreneur, these boundaries are discarded once we sign the loan paperwork and commence operations on a business registered with the Secretary of State. Let’s reflect for a moment about have often you have done the following:

 

1. Been the CEO, Bookkeeper, Front Desk, Instructor and Housekeeper all in the course of a few hours?
2. Missed dinners with friends or family with too much work to do by closing time?
3. Sat with your child through homework while you answered emails frantically on your phone and nodding and mumbled yes periodically to at least give the semblance of interaction?
4. Worked seven days a week, every week?
5. Oh, and maybe, still run a household, even if it’s just you, been the chief chef, housekeeper, errand runner and general all around jack of all trades to keep your semblance of a personal life in check?

 

If you’re like me, you have nodded your head to this list, possibly while falling asleep while you kept on going – just one more email, one more phone call, one more class. So it doesn’t surprise me, when I meet entrepreneur after entrepreneur who tell me they can do it all, but never seem to accomplish anything that propels them to the next summit.

 

An entrepreneur without boundaries is an entrepreneur on the verge of mental and physical exhaustion, leading a business on the verge of stagnation from overstimulation.   Running a successful business requires not just constant movement, but also stillness to enable focus. This stillness allows for personal rest and renewal, time for reflection while finding clarity in one’s vision. Perfecting your plans and actions will drive your business onward and upward in a manner to meet your expectations.

 

The good news: We can answer all your questions while finding solutions to your problems. Together, we will make you and your business significantly stronger.

 

1. Create your Schedule A. In every business our ownership team crafts out a clear set of responsibilities for ourselves as part of our large scale Business Flow Chart. We play to our strengths and focus on areas we can operate in ease from. We set boundaries of when we accept emails, phone calls and texts. (The email feature Boomerang is a Godsend and if you don’t have it, I would get it immediately). We lay out our roles clearly, setting expectations for ourselves and those around us. Does this mean I haven’t pulled an all nighter lately? Of course not. Although there are projects and weeks that require more time and energy, such a schedule can not become the norm. What should you have on your Schedule A:

•  Your chief purpose
•  Your responsibilities…all of them from cleaning staff to instructors
•  Your hours spent with clients
•  Your hours spent on your business
•  Your hours spent your significant others
•  Your vacation time…yes, sounds scary, but this m’dear is a necessity!

 

2.  Remove your email from your phone. Frankly, I shook when I did this. I was convinced the world would stop and my business would fall apart. How would I function without the freedom of having email on my phone had given me. If you are receiving emails day and night with your phone sitting next to you at every dinner, soccer game, movie, and date, your phone is not offering you freedom. Rather, it is intruding on every moment of your life outside of your work.

 

So, how should a successful business leader in the year 2015 operate without instant and constant communication? Here’s what you will need to function?

• Clear plan on communication on emergencies. Should an employee text or call? What is the turnaround time on these?
• When will you check emails? During times when we are working heavily on growing our business .

 

On a side note, if you have employees or will ever have employees, this will be life and business changing for them. In our business we want our employees to have real lives because let’s face it, happy employees mean awesome work, mean insanely satisfied customers. And, that m’dear is the end state of our business.

 

3.  Plan your day with blocks of “Breathe” time. As a Pilates and yoga instructor, I used to judge my time based on very simple principle. Client in = Money Earned. No Client = Loss of Revenue. But as an entrepreneur, my focus had to be on my business as a whole. That meant sales, marketing, employee coaching time, vision planning, and the strategizing of new products.

 

My entrepreneur principle became All Time with Clients = No Long Term Business Growth. Time to Breathe in My Business = Time to Take My Profits Far Beyond Where I Can Go Alone.

 

Keep in mind a boundary isn’t setting a limit on what you can achieve. A boundary preserves your time and energy so when you reach for the stars, you land on them moon.