Getting to the Next Level
Knowledge is power: take the time to detail where your business is going right (or wrong) to know what steps to take next. By Ava Taylor
Everyone wants to get to their next level and everyone can — but if you don’t know the level you’re starting from, it’s a heck of a lot harder. This simple truth means that an honest, comprehensive and granular assessment to uncover precisely where your business is, is crucial to the development.
It’s like setting the beginning destination when you use a ride-share service like Uber or look for directions on the map app on your smartphone. You cannot choose the best route to a destination without knowing your start point. This is the same for your business.
To get to your next level, you have to establish your starting point. The destination will be the goals you want to reach in your yoga business, and the route you choose to get there will be your business plan. Without knowing point A, you cannot get to point B.
As entrepreneurs with daily duties and urgent issues to tend to, yoga professionals are often too busy running the business day to day to take the time to pause and assess. They are often too busy putting out fires to identify and track their successes (both monetary and non-monetary), let alone to spend time thinking about how to capitalise on these successes. They are too busy going from one event to the next to identify and track failures: what they learned, how to resolve the issues and how to avoid these issues moving forward. They are too busy managing the team to see the growth opportunities sitting right under their noses.
“I invite you now to pause, contemplate, observe and assess your existing yoga business using a service model assessment to help you see, as clearly and thoroughly as possible, the state of your yoga business. Getting to your next level starts here and now.”
Assess your service models
Asking questions and gathering data about the service models you use in your current business will give you a realistic foundation on which to build your future business. Within the data you will look for patterns and trends and for what is missing. This will reveal clear opportunities for growth. The data will show what is really happening in your yoga business, not what you think is happening.
As entrepreneurs, we often tell ourselves stories about our businesses. The truth of these stories can be skewed if we focus on what’s wrong and have trouble seeing what is going well, or if we have in our head that things are humming along just fine when there are vital areas for improvement in the business that need to be addressed. An honest, comprehensive, and granular assessment will tell you the facts about your business, and usually things aren’t as good or as bad as you think.
It’s much better to know the truth than to operate based on a story that relies on unsubstantiated assumptions because most of us don’t have a lot of backup resources to rely on when things go awry.
Take a look at the service model assessment graphic again. The horizontal rows of the worksheet are your service models, and the vertical columns are the areas of assessment within each service model. Write down information in the appropriate box about where you are — this will form your assessment.
Now, let’s look closer at each area of your current business assessment worksheet:
Analysis
This is where you will list general details about the business or lack of business you have in each service model. What are the first thoughts that come to mind when you think about each service model?
Revenue and expenses
This is where you list the amount of money you are generating (+) or spending (−). Ask yourself if you are making the kind of money that you want to make or feel that you could make in each service model. Does the money allow you to reinvest and grow your business? Does it allow you to contribute to the world in your highest capacity? Please log the approximate amounts of your annual revenue and expenses by service model. These figures will culminate in an annual income. The purpose of this task is to give you a high-level look at your overall revenue and expenses by service model.
Satisfaction
Are you satisfied with where you are in this service model? Is this area of the business supporting your lifestyle, your family life, your health? Are you excited about this area of your business or the prospects to grow this area of your business? Be sure to ask yourself why you are or aren’t excited about the possibilities within each service model.
Questions to answer
What can you do to make this area of your business more profitable or more satisfying? Write that in the space as well. Are there ideal things about where you are in a particular service model (for example, great pay for that one-to-one session!) or are there not-so-ideal things about where you are (for example, a terrible schedule for the one-to-one session and the client cancels often)?
Remember, it’s okay if you don’t have input for every cell. Many yogis do not do it all. The point is to look clearly at what you have going on right now by taking the time to pause, contemplate, observe, and assess. You will quickly start to see how implementing simple shifts across all of your service models can create more opportunity and revenue for yourself. Knowledge is power, and gathering this kind of detail and information will help you take your business to the next level, step by step.
Based in New York City, Ava Taylor is an avid yogi and a tenacious, creative entrepreneur, author and consultant. Her latest offering ‘Your Yoga Business’ is available from Human Kinetics. Discover more at: yamatalent.com or connect @avantaylor @yamatalent
Om Magazine
First published in November 2009, OM Yoga magazine has become the most popular yoga title in the UK. Available from all major supermarkets, independents and newsstands across the UK. Also available on all digital platforms.
