The Studio CEO: Business Coaching For Yoga & Pilates Teachers & Studio Owners

From The Yoga Boss Vault: Evaluate, Breathe, Keep Going

• Jackie Murphy

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Building a yoga business is exactly like practicing yoga: you show up, you try something, you evaluate what worked and what didn't, you breathe, and you keep going. But most yoga and Pilates teachers stop evaluating their business actions—or they try something once, it doesn't work, and they quit.

In this episode, we walk through the exact process I teach my clients for turning their idea of a beautiful, successful yoga or Pilates business into reality.

You'll learn:

  • How to get clear on what kind of yoga or Pilates business you want to build
  • Why the "how" doesn't matter before you start (and what to focus on instead)
  • The 3 evaluation questions to ask after every action you take
  • How to evaluate your results objectively without making them mean anything about you
  • Why building a business is the same practice as getting into a challenging yoga pose

This episode is for yoga teachers, Pilates instructors, and studio owners who are ready to stop waiting until they're "ready" and start building the business they've been dreaming about.

Listen now to learn how to practice building your business the same way you practice on your mat.

Work with Jackie Murphy


SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously, and scale to new heights without burning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights, and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team, and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. Hello, it's Jackie Murphy. And before we jump into today's episode, I want to tell you about something I'm running that I think you're going to love. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know I talk a lot about the real reasons yoga and Pilates business owners struggle to grow. And spoiler alert, it's usually not what you think. It's not having the perfect intro offer. It's not your pricing, it's not your schedule or your competitors, or the fact that you're not on YouTube yet. It's your marketing strategy, or more specifically, the three mistakes almost every business owner makes that sabotage growth before it has a chance to really build momentum. So I created a free workshop called The Three Marketing Mistakes Most Yoga and Pilates Studio Owners Make. And in it, I walk you through exactly what those mistakes are, why they're so common, and most importantly, how to fix them. This isn't theory, it's not fluff, it's the exact framework I use with clients who are tired of spinning their wheels and ready to fill their classes and grow their revenue. You can sign up in the link below the show notes. It's free, it's right around an hour, and I promise it's going to shift the way that you think about marketing in your business. All right, let's get into today's episode. This is one of my favorites from the vault, and I think it's going to hit differently after what we've been talking about lately. You are listening to Yoga Boss, episode number four.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Yoga Boss, the only podcast for ambitious yoga teachers who know the real value of yoga, where life coach and yoga teacher Jackie Skinner teaches you how to rewire your brain to confidently leap from employee to yoga entrepreneur. Are you ready to build the business of your dreams?

SPEAKER_01:

Hi, friends. Welcome back to Yoga Boss. My name is Jackie Skinner, and this is episode number four. Evaluate, breathe, and keep going. Today we're going to dive into how to turn your idea of a beautiful and successful yoga business into reality. We are going to dive into how to get into action that actually creates results. And then the most important part, how to evaluate those results, take a breath, and then keep going. So, first thing we have to discover first, first thing we have to get really, really clear on what kind of yoga business do you want to create? Some of my clients want to build their businesses just off of teaching private. Some of my clients want to build their businesses online teaching. Some of my clients want to build from retreats. Some of my clients want to build from teaching not the asana, not the physical part of yoga, but the mental side of yoga. And some of my clients are just creating brand new formats and brand new class styles. So give yourself some time to discover what kind of business do you want to create? Now, I have also talked to some people who don't know. When I ask this question, okay, so what kind of business do you want to create? Their first answer is, I don't know. And if that's you, there's absolutely no need to worry. This is just a sign that you've got a little bit disconnected from what you really want in life. Maybe you've avoided really letting yourself dream about your yoga business because you truly didn't think it was possible. And after time, after telling ourselves it's not possible for so long, we lose clarity on what it is that we want to create in the world. So you first have to reconnect to the possibility of your yoga business. It's so possible for you to hit six figures, seven figures teaching yoga. And when you really tap into that, you can let your mind start to imagine and come up with ideas for how you're going to turn that into a reality. Like this is a for sure possibility for you. And if you're still not totally sure, let me just break this down for you. Every single idea that we have starts as a thought. The tiny thought in your head that sounded something like, oh, I could become a yoga teacher, or maybe it was I want to teach yoga, or I'd like to be a yoga teacher, or maybe I'd be a good teacher. That tiny little thought that just rolled around once in your brain was once just an idea. From that idea, you felt inspired and you took action. You signed up for the teacher training, you went to the classes, and now you're a certified teacher. Like look at the result you have now. Maybe it's 200-hour certification, maybe it's 500-hour certification. It is a reality. You took an idea. I could be a yoga teacher and you made it real. Congratulations. You've turned one of your ideas into a reality. And if that's not you yet, if you're in the middle of certification or you're thinking about certification, that's okay. I guarantee you that there's other ideas that you have had that are now reality. And this can be just as simple as what did you want for lunch today? Like you thought about the delicious arugula salad and then you eat it. I'm a huge fan of arugula. And that's not the point, though. The point is we have ideas all the time that we turn into reality. And so the idea of building a yoga business is just one of those ideas, right? It is so possible for you to take that thought and turn it into a reality. Check in with your current circumstances. Check in with the results that you have right now. Do you remember when you first thought about creating them? Do you remember when they first crossed your mind? Now it's the life that you live. Now it's a reality. Here's the thing: you are so powerful. It's Marianne Williamson who says, we're not afraid of our darkness, right? We are afraid of our power, of how unbelievably good and strong we are. We are afraid of our light. I totally just butchered that quote, but you got the point. And my mentor, Brooke Casillo, considers that our dreams and our ideas are our energy PS. They are guiding us, they are leading us to our destiny. They are guiding us to where we're meant to go and what we're meant to achieve. So it is not a coincidence that you have the dream to build a yoga business. It is your inner GPS guiding you to who you're meant to serve, what kind of students you're meant to change, what kind of students you're meant to show up and be a stand for. It's a guide to what you're meant to achieve in your life. So once you know clearly what it is that you want to create, what kind of yoga business, what ideas you want to make into reality, it's time to get into action. We spoke a little bit about this in episode three. There's a huge difference between massive action, action that creates results, and passive action, spending time in activities, researching, reading, ruminating, worrying. Those activities don't create results. Instead, we want to take action that creates results. It's time to act. You know that your primitive brain, the part of your brain that wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and be efficient, will not enjoy this. It will start to spin all kinds of stories about how your idea, your yoga business, it's not quite good enough yet. If only you had a bit more knowledge, right? If only you spend a little bit more time reading or studying or enrolling in the training, then. Or your primitive brain will start to tell you that you're not quite capable yet, that you need more experience or you need more time or you need more skills under your belt before you get started. That is okay. Let that fear and doubt rise, let it be there. You can let discomfort be there and keep going. If you want more on this, it's all in episode three. I talk you through how to do it. But you're going to act, anyways. You're going to take actions that produce results. And the results that you want to produce as you build a yoga business are revenue. The results you want to produce are new students, new clients. It's revenue. So you've got to go out and meet people, build your network, engage with different people, tell them what you do, tell them your specific offer. What is it? What is your idea? What do you do? And then make an offer. Give them an opportunity so that you can help them. Give them an opportunity to enroll and sign up with you. Now, here is the thing: most of our brains will get stuck in one specific area. Our brains get stuck in how. And when we get stuck in how, we don't take action. That's when we get stuck researching, reading, ruminating, thinking that we're not ready yet. We need more experience. The how is not the important piece. Let me say this again. The how is not the important piece. You do not need to know how before you start. Instead, ask yourself again and again, what can I do right now? Take your best guess. What can I do right now to produce revenue as I sell out my retreats? What can I do right now to produce revenue with private clients? What can I do right now to produce revenue with my new class format? Do it. Then this is huge. Collect results. So we don't just go out and do and do and do and do and do and then turn around in five years and be like, what happened? We are gonna get intentional. We're gonna go out, we're gonna do, we're gonna try the thing, meeting people, telling them what we offer, making an offer to help them, and then we're gonna collect the results. How much money did you make? How many students came to class? How many return students did you have? How many people were on your retreat? And you're going to evaluate your results. Now, this piece is really, really important. It is so huge that you evaluate your results after everything that you do. There are three simple questions that you can use to evaluate your results. The first thing you're gonna ask yourself is what worked? You want to take ownership for the positive results that you create on purpose. When you sell out your retreat, ask your brain to sit down and really, really get clear on what worked. Was it your Instagram post? Was it your blog post? Was it how you said it? Was it who you talked to? Was it your freebie before your retreat? You want to get so clear on what worked so that you can repeat those actions. You can do more of what worked on purpose. Now, sometimes you'll sit down and you'll ask yourself, okay, what worked? And your brain will be like, nothing. That's okay. I want you to be patient with it. Keep asking, keep looking for what is working. Maybe you're not getting the revenue that you want to get quite yet. That's okay. What else is working? How else can you know that your business is on track? How else can you know that your business is working? This is so, so important. It's actually something I do every single morning. I write what's working, and then I write a list at least to five or 10 things of what is working in my business. So I am so clear on what it is that I need to replicate, what I need to do again. And it helps me know where my focus should be. So the first question that you ask is what worked? The second question that you're going to ask, very simple, what didn't work? If you're willing to look at what didn't work and really be honest about what actions that you took that didn't produce results that you intended, the more actions that you can come up with, the more clarity you have on what didn't work, the easier it'll be to shift it. Again, if your brain says, I don't know, that's okay. Notice that and keep asking, what if you did know? What could you guess didn't work? Remember, your actions create a result. So if you're not getting the result that you want, there's something off in what you are doing or what you're not doing. Now, when you don't get a result that you want, or to be fair, when you do get the result that you want, it doesn't mean anything about you. Your results in your business, the revenue that you bring in, the number of clients you have, the number of students in your class, the number of people on your retreat, does not mean anything about you. And if you really want to build this business long-term and make it successful and turn it into something that you do for your whole entire life, it is an imperative that you actually don't make it mean anything about you. You want to be able to evaluate what's working and what's not working from a truly objective standpoint. As if you were just like a scientist wanting to get really clear on what was happening in the experiment of building a yoga business. Go from an objective place and you'll be able to shift and move and learn and stay committed even when you don't get the result that you want to get. So the last question you're gonna ask yourself after what worked, what didn't work, is what am I going to do differently? And sometimes this answer might be, I'm going to do more of what worked and less of what didn't. And sometimes this answer will come up with very something specific. I'm going to say it differently. I'm going to show up differently. I'm going to try this instead of that. When you decide what you're going to do differently, you're going to go out. You're going to guess at what you need to do differently. You're going to do it. You're going to collect results. And then you're back at evaluation phase. This is the process, you guys. Take action. What can I do right now? Make your best guess. Go do it. Collect results. Evaluate your results. What worked? What didn't work? What will you do differently? Evaluate objectively, not making the results mean anything about you. And then hit reset and do it every single day. This is the process of building any specific type of yoga business that you want. Action, creation, failure, and then not quitting. You have to evaluate, breathe, keep going. I want you to consider that this is the same practice that you do on your mat. Right? You practice, you practice, you practice, and you keep going. It's Batabi Joyce that said, practice, practice, practice, all is coming. This is it. You try a pose. You evaluate. But what can I do differently? Where can I add more effort? Where can I add more ease? You try it again. You breathe. You evaluate. And eventually over time, that practice of showing up and restarting again and again every single time that you step on your mat, every single time that you try that pose, that is what gives you handstand one day. That is what gives you nailing the posture eventually. And we know that yoga isn't about nailing handstand, right? We know that yoga isn't about the postures. It's about who you're becoming on the way to achieving the posture. The same thing is true in your business. Your business is not about the results that you will create. It's not about the money that you will make. It's who you will become on the way there. It's the type of person you will be, the yoga boss that you will be when you can take action, fail, succeed, evaluate, and then keep going. And what will happen is the money that you make, the result that you create is the cherry on top to becoming the person that you're meant to be. This is the practice, my friends. Take action, evaluate, breathe, keep going. I'll see you in episode five.