05: Case Study – Increasing Yoga Memberships By 50%

What Is This Episode About…

In this episode, we are going to welcome Linda Osorio, a fellow yoga studio owner, onto the show to share how she got into yoga, started her yoga studio, and the challenges she faced in growing and sustaining the business. 

At one point in the business, she was going through a rough patch and kept hitting a barrier in memberships, but when she reached out to us, we helped her increase her memberships by up to 50% which created a level of financial freedom that gave her the ability and free time to take care of her family. She’s going to talk about all that and more, and it’s going to be so valuable to gain insight into your own experience of what it means to be a yoga entrepreneur. 

Key Points Discussed:

• Synchronicity saves procrastinators (03:32)
• How Linda got into yoga: Her backstory (04:41)
• The Stafford House of Yoga: The good and the challenging (08:41)
• Problems with consistency in the classroom (14:33)
• Parting ways with a great yoga teacher (18:40)
• Rebuilding the teacher training aspect of the business (25:11)
• Challenges with memberships (29:42)

 

Learn More About The Content Discussed…

Join The Facebook Group –> http://bit.ly/yogaentrepreneur

When Was It Released…

This episode was released July 26, 2019

Episode Transcript…

Disclaimer: The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors

00:00          Welcome to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. I am Chris Yaxf. And I’m John Yax. We are the Yaks brothers. And today, we are super excited because we have a really special episode where we interview our good friend and fellow Yoga studio owner, Linda Osorio. She was going through a rough patch where she had so many crazy things happening at the same time and she thought, “How can I continue to do this?” So she reached out to us and we helped her with a few little tweaks, revolutionized her business. Yeah. So there was a period of time where she, you know, she kept hitting the barrier of like memberships and she was always trying to like, just break that barrier. And she talks about in the episode it’s really great and with just a little bit of help from us and a few tweaks, she has increased her memberships by 45%, and at the same time, she’s increased her free time, her ability to take care of her family.

 

00:51          And it’s just a phenomenal story. And, what’s really important is that, we talked for a while. You’re going to hear about the first 30 minutes in this episode, but to hear the rest of it, and what she actually did that you can potentially even model for your own studio is at the end. And so to get that, you have to do one thing, jump on over to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets Facebook group and drop your email in the member questions, and we will send the rest of that episode over to you right away. So stay with us and enjoy the episode.

 

01:24          What’s up everyone? You are listening to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. I am Chris Yax, and I’m John Yax. We are part of a small group of yoga entrepreneurs who are committed to making a living, doing what we love, without feeling guilty about making money, or ashamed of being successful, because we know the real value of yoga and how the world needs it now more than ever. This podcast is here to teach the strategies and tactics so we can thrive financially as yoga entrepreneurs. We are the Yaks brothers and welcome to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets.

 

01:55          What’s up YES crew? We are here with Linda’s Osorio and see is a, she is a dear friend of ours who has been an entrepreneur for years and years and years and has been in the trenches running businesses, running yoga studios, doing it all and she’s a rock star. So we are blessed to have her here and… yeah, we’re excited cause she’s going to tell us her story, which is so valuable to gain insight into your own experience of what it means to be a yoga entrepreneur.

 

02:27          Hello.

 

02:30          Hi Linda.

 

02:33          Hi. I’m really excited to be here. We’re glad you’re here. Thanks for having me.

 

02:38          Yeah, it’s awesome how it worked out.

 

02:40          A synchronicity for sure. And it’s definitely I know I’m supposed to be here so it’s pretty awesome.

 

02:45          So I get a text from, from our crew about an interview and that was I think Monday and I was supposed to reach out to Linda sometime last week. It was so bad. It was such a busy and so I get this message from Daxy and Ryan, they’re like, hey guys, just checking in. And, uh, that’s our, that’s our team on the back end. And uh, do you guys have the interview set up? I was like, oh no. So I immediately texted Linda and she was like, OMG, I was just about to contact you guys. I’m going to be in the area where you guys are and I was going to drop in and just say hi and connect right at the same time I went. So like that’s so synchronicity. Yes, it is a real thing.

 

03:32          Synchronicity seems to save your ass a lot. Hahn John, that’s the [inaudible]

 

03:37          it’s working for them. Yeah. Without synchronicity. Procrastinators with very quick that is the truth. That is the truth. So, um, yeah so uh, Linda and I went back and forth with some Texas. She was like, I am going to be there. So this is perfect timing and I was like, oh this probably timing. We did a virtual high five and Sam here. Yes. So here we are. Here we are. Thank you for being here.

 

04:01          Of course. Of course. I’m happy to be here. Really excited to be a part of, um, you know, your podcast cause I listen to a lot of podcasts and I, um, through the years of knowing you guys have recorded you, like it was my own personal podcast and notes, you know, always take a lot of notes and I just refer back to my scribble and go, yeah, that’s right. So it’s really cool that it’s like coming together on a more, um, organized way other than on my scribble pad and my videos.

 

04:32          So I think for everyone to get to know you better, um, I guess, uh, as we get into this, how did you get into yoga to tell your back story a little bit?

 

04:41          Sure. Um, so once upon a time, if you want to hear my story, um, I was, so just to go back a little further, I was a teen mom, so being a teen mom was really hard. Luckily I had a great, great support system, but I didn’t go to college. So I didn’t, you know, when you graduate from high school, got my GED, blah blah, blah. Went to, um, massage therapy school and uh, learn. So I was just thinking, oh, just, you know, I want to help people feel better. Like, you know, throw some lotion on their legs or something. I don’t know, work out the muscles. But I learned a lot about anatomy and I, and it really gave me confidence when I pass the national exam cause that is very hard. And I passed it the first time. So yay for someone who didn’t graduate from high school, that made me feel really good.

 

05:24          And from there I just took a very serious right out the door, you know, bodywork. So what happened was a few years into that, it was around 2006 or seven, there was a massage therapist who said, oh, you got to try yoga. And she kept trying to get me to go and, and finally on when, and, um, the first class I was just like, you know, I really, there’s something about this. I feel it. I like it. And I started thinking about it from my clients at that point. So I started practicing on my own and then found hot yoga after that. And then that was just what really hooked me was the hot yoga.

 

05:59          Yeah, it was, we had the same story. Like why did yoga for, it’s probably like a month. I try not all these different like places around the area. And then I was literally like, ah, I don’t know.

 

06:08          Well you are lucky cause you guys probably had more than one place. We were like one place. And even though she was amazing, she had been a teacher for like 30 years at that point. It was the only place. And, and even then it was like wasn’t busy or anything. And, um, but I did a lot of other things there, but you know, like meditation and things, a Chakra cleansing and all that. And it was awesome. But you know, we didn’t have the option of seeing a lot of different places. Um, you know, I had to drive up to northern Virginia to find the first hot studio. And so in a way you guys are Kinda lucky. You got to explore different, different places without having to drive too far.

 

06:44          Yeah. And we are coming from the martial arts background to where we wanted something intense. And you wanted your bucket. Yeah. Yeah, we were. And before that I wasn’t getting it, that physical experience. And then when we actually, I think before a hot yoga studio opened up in our area, we had to drive up to, was it to Richmond? I’m going to drive it. Oh really? Yeah. We had to drive from Richmond to experience our first hot hot yoga class. Yeah. So there was only, at the time when we first started, there was only probably two studios around in the area, two yoga studios. Right. And there was no hot yoga at all. And so we drove up to Richmond to get our first experience and that was like, wow.

 

07:16          Wow. So yeah, hot yoga was, wasn’t around either. Then. Okay, you guys were the beginning of that in Virginia Beach.

 

07:25          Yeah. Well then a yoga studio, a hot yoga studio opened up and that’s when we were able to do it consistently. But the first, the first hot studio that opened was our first experience and it ended up, we went to training and that was the first studio we taught, we taught at. So. Okay. So you get into yoga, hot yoga is what captured you what I’m like, how did you end up owning a yoga studio?

 

07:48          Well, um, I owned a massage therapy center called massage matters. Actually, it was a co-owner in that, but I ran it. I mean, I literally built it from the ground up and uh, so we had about a thousand square foot space, had, uh, five rooms, ended up making my office into another massage room. That’s how busy we got. And, um, it was not a spa, it was just like straight-up massage. And it was really important to me that we had more of like, a scientific approach to it. And not just like, you know, relaxation. You know, I’m always trying to get kind of down to the root of things. Like what is it really that’s bothering them, you know, and why is it that I kept working on this person and what they keep having the same issues. Like they come back two weeks later, oh it felt good for a week and then you know, pain comes back and I realized that they were just so unconscious about their body mechanics and through my own personal practice I was like, you know, I think yoga would do really well for them.

 

08:41          And so I was sending them down to the studio in Fredericksburg and then I was just like, man, somebody needs to open up a studio here cause they’re not gonna want to go to drive 30 minutes and be consistent with the practice down there. So Tyler’s another massage therapist who was well known for her yoga classes in Quantico and her name is Angela and she’s really great teacher. And I said, um, Kay, what would you think about opening up a yoga studio with me? And cause I didn’t really know anything about teaching. All I knew was business at that point. That was my skill and you know, bodywork and stuff. And she was like, sure. And I was like, awesome, let’s do it. And that was it. And uh, that’s Kinda how it happened. And uh, the House of Yoga, Stafford House, a yoga she actually named that we were talking about was like, what should we name?

 

09:29          And she’s like Stafford House of Yoga. And I was like, that sounds good. And we were looking at a shopping center to open a bar space and we, before we signed a lease there, I found this house right on Sixth and Main road. And I remember just going, I mean it was kind of a dive was a dump and I was just like, there’s something special about it. And then there was a tree in the back and I hugged it and I said, please give this place to me. And then the day before we signed the lease for this space, the bank said that they wanted to run it to me and it was going to be half the price. And I was like, yes. And so she and I gutted the place with some contractors. I mean it was tough. It was really, really hard. I’m not gonna lie, but um, we made it work and from the get go we were busy.

 

10:11          So for all the listeners just, I’ll make this connection. They named it Stafford House of Yoga and then they found a house before. Right.

 

10:20          And we found a commercial. Ha. I mean it was zone commercial on a main road, which is like not normal. Yeah. It’s like mostly commercial is like strip malls. So it was, I knew and then I was another thing I was just like, I knew this was the right place and that’s pretty cool. I like definitely the fact that we have like our own private little space. We have a deck, we have, you know, a little kitchen upstairs and we have two yoga rooms and a nice lobby and little garden in the front and we grow vegetables and it’s pretty cool. Especially Cause Stafford’s not that fun.

 

10:54          Let me point out something else. When you want something you have to hug a tree to eventually get it. That was the kicker for it. Yes, you have to, but you have to

 

11:02          do it with true intention and love.

 

11:05          It forces nature into the mix of your intentions and makes it, it makes it spassed. Right. Exactly. In fact,

 

11:12          like I’m telling you, there’s, there’s power like beyond what we recognize that can take you somewhere, but don’t rely only on that either. You know, don’t just sit around and hug trees all day hoping that

 

11:25          not a big bag of money, it’s going to drop in your lap. We are co-creating this experience. I, which mean there’s more effort than hugging a tree that is on our shoulders to get done.

 

11:34          Money does not grow on trees. No, it doesn’t. Not yet.

 

11:37          You use the tree to help you. Yes. When you guys opened what you, were you teaching at the time, what was your responsibility in the business when you started?

 

11:45          Yeah, so no one wasn’t teaching. Angela was doing most of the teaching with some other teachers that we just hired, you know, um, and uh, did do the interview process together and she, you know, I could kind of tell like through their vibe if they were good or not through my own experience as a practitioner, but I was running the back end of it, you know, I got the business set up. I, you know, did all that, um, you know, marketing, advertising, employees stuff, payroll, things like that. And Angela did help with some of that, but that was more like my thing and then she was more like front end and you know, thinking back, I thought business would apply to every [inaudible] that you would want to do. But the yoga business was definitely a rude awakening. How so? Because it was hard as shit, even though we were busy. Um, I’ll give you an example. The day we opened and I knew Mindbody. Okay. I’ve been using my body since 2008 a and a. So when we opened up in 20.

 

12:43          So mind-body has software that so many yoga do almost all yoga studios use, uh, and on gyms and things like that. So

 

12:50          yeah. Yeah, it’s very common. And I mean, I’d already used it for the massage therapy business, but the first day we opened, we had a ton of people in the lobby for our grand opening and stuff like that. And we were selling memberships, which was good, but we were setting them up wrong. I mean, for, I think it was two years after that, maybe a little longer, a little over two years, I was going back fixing people’s accounts because they were being charged too much. They were, you know, we signed them up for a membership that lasted literally one month and you’re like, wait a minute. I thought this was, you know, the 12-month commitment that we set them up. They only got the, they’re only paying for one month and they’d been practicing here for six months for free practically. So, and then having to go back and ask them to pay for the past six months, you know, like, I mean, there wasn’t just one person.

 

13:36          I’m telling you probably I’d say about a hundred. Yeah, it was, it was madness. I mean, it was madness, but the, the good news was that we were wanted, the bad news was I didn’t know what the crap I was doing, even though I thought I did. Yeah. So that was very stressful. Oh, when I was pregnant too, by the way, during the opening, my son was born two weeks after our grand opening. It wasn’t planned. Like my other two kids weren’t either, but that’s life. So he was born two weeks after our grand opening and uh, that made it kind of tough too. But, um, but you know, hey, I did it. I’m here. Um, I survived.

 

14:12          So it sounds like you’re pretty successful off the Gecko. Like people are coming in and you know, obviously some logistical stuff and making sure that people are getting charged for the memberships they’re taking. Uh, what were some of the, like some of the beginning hurdles that you had to get over, like as you, the growing pains of it. Were they immediate or that take time or were immediately profitable or how long did that take? What are some of the things?

 

14:33          Ah, well that’s part of the piece that I really like. It was in my business plan, but, um, I had no idea how, I guess important. The teacher training aspect of it was I’m thinking, Oh, we just sell memberships that, um, you know, create enough profit but, and it, and it does, but at that point, you know, we had the overhead of paying our staff and the front desk. So we don’t do Karma Yoga like a lot of studios do. Like we actually pay our staff nothing against it, but I don’t think it’s a good model, um, because we want longterm, uh, employees or you know, front staff. And anyways, so the overhead was more than what I thought. And then also we didn’t have consistency, uh, in the classroom. So it was, it was really hard to manage the teachers really hard. So that was very stressful when you have to deal with managing teachers, um, then it takes you away from other things that are important, like paying your rent. So yeah, it was, it was kind of stressful for sure. And then on top of that, you know, um, you want to be busy and we were, but when you’re so busy and overwhelmed, it can exhaust you for sure. And it did.

 

15:46          So in, so in the process of like, you have the studio,

 

15:50          you’re, you’re trying to figure out

 

15:51          all of these things and, and like mind-body mistakes and teachers and like try and like,

 

15:58          oh my God. And the toilet. So because it’s a house, it’s on a septic. Okay. This house is old from like the seventies all right, so it’s on aseptic. But here’s the thing, it’s really weird. The septic pumps into the main city line. But what would happen was, because we had so many people taking showers and bathrooms stuff, it would back up and then the smell would back up into the studio. I mean, on a regular, I can’t even tell you the American tank cleaning people. I mean, they knew me like we were family now. I mean, it was

 

16:25          right. Seriously, they knew, okay,

 

16:28          you gotta go there, you know, what does it pump the septic? So they finally got fixed. It was a pump issue, but that was like five years later it got fixed. Okay. So anyways, yeah, that was really a shitty mass. Literally. Literally.

 

16:42          And we would, I’d walk into the studio and I’d be like, why does this smell like shit? I mean, I was already, you know, like, and I’m like, man, this place should be smelling at least like sweat or incense or something, but not,

 

16:55          uh Huh.

 

16:57          It was really, really tough. Now I can laugh about it, but it was really stressful in the moment. It really was. Yeah.

 

17:04          And so that was like, so how was to you had a, basically a Newport at this time too, so like, like life and business and like you were juggling,

 

17:14          I could have been a fucking professional drug, drug dealer and the circus that’s like, you know, it was like, okay, do this, do that. And, um, what I learned from that was, and I think this hit me later, you know, like I, I learned it a while ago, but I put it into words now it’s like you can hustle business but you can’t hustle your family. And at the time I was just like putting everything like hustle mode. Like, okay, kid goes here, you know, dad goes here, other kid goes there, business here, you know. And uh, it just, it really was overwhelming. But luckily, you know, a little crowd, which is cool, is that he grew up in a yoga studio and I would look back on the pictures of him pulling out mats from the hot yoga room, you know, playing with the Little Buddha and, you know, just running around, you know, that brings me a lot of joy. So in the moment, in the heat of it, you don’t recognize it as much, but now I do. So it was all, you know, in the end it was all pretty good. Yeah. I don’t think I’d be able to s would have been able to see that though if I didn’t pull myself out of that, like that stress and, and that was, that’s where you guys came in was like, that is actually what I would have to say saved the business really. So anyway, thank you.

 

18:26          Yeah, our pleasure. So talk, talk about that for a moment though. Cause there was like an experience, a situation happened that kind of forced your hand in a way that you would have never predicted would’ve happened, right? Yeah.

 

18:40          Right. So, uh, Angela, who’s, you know, a really great teacher and Person Lover Lot, she’s awesome and being a yoga really great yoga teacher, she actually learned in India and when she learned Yoga in India, they didn’t, where they weren’t part of yoga alliance or like what the hell man, we’re like ancient teachers, generations of people teaching yoga. We don’t need no yoga alliance. So she didn’t get certified through Yoga Lions. And so when we wanted to open up our teacher training, she could not do it with the yoga line certification. Right. And we knew that that was important because that’s what a lot of people were looking for. Like, oh, are you yoga alliance certified or whatever. And so she, then she came up to me one day and she was like, we can’t do teacher training because I’m not yoga alliance certified. And that was in our business plan, right? The, the teacher training, how much we’d make and stuff. And I just remember going just thinking like, oh my gosh,

 

19:35          fucking God. I was like, why? What is Yoga Alliance? And I needed to know that before. Right, right, right. Yeah. But you know, just like, and I, he and I, and that’s where

 

19:50          I still kind of struggle with yoga online. So I’m like, I get, it’s important to regulate it, but at the same time, I’m like handle as a Badass teacher. She could teach a lot of people teacher training. I mean, we don’t need that. And so we discussed not having it, you know, but in the end it was like, it was necessary. And so long story short, um, we parted ways and, uh, she’s a big activist now in the Dakotas. For, you know, the, you know, the pipeline and supporting the natives. So go Angela. I’m always sending her love up there. But um, anyways, uh, so after she left I was like, okay, I need to do something. So it just, so happened to got an email from a company in um, like Ohio and I was like, all right, so maybe I’ll just hire them to do my teacher training on an I does.

 

20:39          Even if I get 30%, it’s 30% of, you know, this month that’s not bad and I don’t have to do it because I can’t. Oh, but really quick, just to step back really quick. Ah, when Angela went to teacher training, she was looking for studios and she actually went to one in DC that she hated. She did it for a couple months and then at the same time I’m thinking I should do teacher training because as an owner I need to be able to understand the needs of the teachers and if somebody calls out, I should be able to come in and sub. I, you know, me canceling just doesn’t happen. I hate to cancel anything, appointments, classes. I mean I gave classes to two people before, um, and you know, I just don’t like to cancel if I can help it. So, um, she and I just so happened she, she signed up for teacher training and with the Yax Yoga I had no idea. And cause this was all kind of happening so fast and juggling a million things in an I signed up and then Peggy, she, even

 

21:34          Robby, she’s like, that’s funny, somebody else from Stafford is going to be doing our training, maybe he can carpool with them. And I said, really? She said someone named Angela. I said, no fucking way. And I, so I saw her and I was like, did you put the axiom cause she’s like, yeah. I said, me too. She was like, you’re the other person from Stanford. I said, yes. And I said, well, you know what?

 

21:55          It must be a good place. I knew it was going to be a good place just from my bodywork experience that Yak sugar was where I wanted to do my training. But having Angela back that too was like, okay, this is supposed to happen. And then us going through it together was pretty cool.

 

22:10          Yeah. There’s that synchronicity thing happening. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I love it. That was, so that was the first teacher training, I think Chris and I did in Richmond.

 

22:19          Yes it was because you guys were getting ready to open up the one in short pump and a are, I remember it very clearly like every weekend because it was like my highlight of the month and you know, during that time to, you know, my little guys like I think two or three at the time and I w and you just had your first one and you had one on the way and you know, I was like, oh, you guys don’t, yeah,

 

22:41          no business in babies. That’s some tough shit. But um, anyways, but it was awesome.

 

22:49          So Nice for me because I needed to decompress. Like, you know, uh, healer, heal, heal, heal thyself, right. It’s like here I am trying to support the community bodywork. At the time, I still had massage therapy practice and I’m like running on fumes. I’m literally like a Zombie. So it was like, ah, I can’t wait to go back and go to whole foods and connect with people who know about, you know, what I’m talking about. And it was just cool. Yeah. So thank you for that too.

 

23:17          You’re welcome.

 

23:22          You guys are funny and that always helped too. You guys were hilarious but serious at the same time, which is pretty nice combination. Yup.

 

23:29          I appreciate it. Um, so you, so you went to you to training and help. That’s, you know, it helps you personally and also to understand the business aspect. So it was kind of a dual, like a two for like you, you want understand what’s going on to support the needs of your teachers, but it also was something for that helped in your life. Right?

 

23:48          Definitely. Um, well I was able to feel like I could be more part of the studio instead of just the backend. And then I also, for the therapeutic approach is so like valuable to me. I knew in that moment that that’s what I needed to do at the studio. Me and Angela would talk about it on her way to the studio. Like, man, we need to get all the teachers to do this and how are we going to do it when everybody’s doing their own thing. And so that was pretty challenging. But, um, I know that it helped me at least have a starting point. Like, okay, this is where we are. This is where I want to go. One day. I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but it’s, you know, this is what I’m, I at least I know what I’m working towards now. Before it was just like everything was up in the air and the classes and the teachers and my life, um, this is crazy, but it’s now I can see the value of it because sometimes you’ve got to go through shit to appreciate where you are. And I’m just glad that I didn’t give up and you know, people didn’t give up on me either. And that was pretty amazing.

 

24:46          Yeah. That’s awesome. What, so what happened there was, um, you know, for the partnership between you and Angela, something happened that like, made you like the training that you did, like even more important at that moment. What was that?

 

24:59          What do you mean? Like what was, what did we, why did we think the training, the teacher training was so important?

 

25:04          No, when a, so here you are the business end of it. She’s the teacher end of it, the yoga end of it, but then she leaves. Yeah, right. It was that, yeah.

 

25:11          Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She, she, she went to California and then I was just like, okay, Linda, you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. What are you going to do? I’m going to copy the yaks yoga brother. I know that they are awesome and I would like to be like them one day. Um, and also from a business perspective, not just from Yoga because like, again, as a massage therapist, I mean, I been practicing massage therapy since 2004, and I was just like, this is what I really want for people. I want people to have healthy backs. I want them to sit up and catch themselves during the day, be conscious of their body mechanics. So anyway, I knew that I needed a good teacher training system in there, but I also knew that I needed to support my community wasn’t just like a profit thing.

 

25:52          It was like a representation of who I am, what I believe in and what I wanted for the community. And so when I had talked to this company to come and do it for us the first couple of years, I’m telling you after the first teacher training I was just like, I don’t know man, this isn’t a good idea. But you know, if you feel like you have to give it another try, just because maybe at the time your personal life was spilling over into business and you were just kind of, you know, not turned on by them because of other reasons. Well after the second year was like, no, that’s not it. They really just don’t align with my belief system on the science of Yoga. They were good as far as getting people to remember how to do a specific script. Right. But anybody can do that.

 

26:43          Anybody can spit out information. And my opinion, it’s like really understanding the Fascia and the body and the, you know, the therapeutic approach and why like to the point that they could even put it in their own words. That’s what I really wanted. And so yeah, from there, that’s when I begged you to, I was like, damn, John, please, I need your help. I’m going to die. Um, yeah, but you know, I learned from that experience too and it was all good. Like I’ve had some good teachers out of that, don’t get me wrong, and some of them are still with me today. Uh, but now we only do the yaks yoga approach, which is the mile fashion line being the most important piece to it. How to open the body. Everybody has to follow that no matter what. But yes, it was very hard to get them to do that.

 

27:27          We, so right during that time, and I don’t know if you remember, but we had literally just had a complete reorganization of our business, so totally restructuring. So we bought out a partner and split up a business like whole, like it was like we, we just went through a year of chaos, total restructuring, total chaos and a few months we had just gotten the other [inaudible] on the other side of that. And a few months later is when you called me and our we talked or, yeah,

 

27:54          yeah, yeah. Cause you guys had the, you guys just opened up at that point, the, the other studio in Richmond. Where is that? And um, it was in Midlothian. Yeah. And so it’s like, aw man, they got their hands full. They’re not going to want to come help me, you know? Um, so, but I was just like, I was so desperate for help and I was just like, well, I don’t want to, I’ve already tried asking somebody. I didn’t know. And, and it, it, it didn’t work out exactly the way I wanted it to. So I was just like, I have got to, I don’t know, fry or something. I’d get on my knees and back on plates. Luckily I didn’t have to go to that extreme. John [inaudible] was very receptive, which was, I’ll never forget that day. Never. Was definitely a pinnacle point in my life.

 

28:38          Like turning point. I don’t know if you guys ever seen the movie the jerk? No. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The point-like where like, you know, he, he becomes a millionaire because he fixed, he does this thing on the glasses, that little nose piece or, and there’s this part in the movie where the guy, he says, we’ll fix my glasses. And he throws it to him and it’s in slow motion. He grabs the glasses. And in that moment is when he knew, well he didn’t know, but he just in his, his power grab those glasses and he fixed them and he put this little nose piece on it and he became a millionaire from that. Now I’m not saying, you know, I’m a millionaire yet, but I knew in that moment going home, man, I was just like, this is the changing point in my life. I know it is. Like it could have been in slow motion. I mean, I replayed in my mind in slow motion because it was just so powerful. It was a powerful, powerful moment. I mean, Ralph Gates was powerful too, but that I would have to say that was it for me. I was like, oh, I paid for that. That workshop was for that. That’s how it was. It was really good, really cool.

 

29:42          And Audrey went with me that day too, and she had to hear me the whole way home, her and Billy about how excited I was. Luckily she was excited with me. You know you want people to be excited with you, you know, and she totally got me. She understands what I was going through because she was my manager at the, the house of Yoga. And, um, so when you surround yourself with people who, um, understand your struggle and maybe even have been there and, uh, you know, they’re kinda cheering you on and stuff, it definitely helps keep you going because there were times, or it was just like, I can’t do this anymore. We’re not making any money. Um, for some reason I couldn’t like break certain numbers, like memberships and I, I would always have these monthly goals like, oh, we have to sell these many memberships and this and that.

 

30:23          And it was just always tough. And then some days, uh, when I would check the reports, it was like we lost members. I was like, damn, you know, and, and I just couldn’t understand why we had all these classes, you know? I mean, I was paying myself like five. I remember the first, after year two, I started paying myself, well, you’re one, I’m actually, Angela and I would split a very small salary, but, um, there were times I didn’t take a paycheck. I was just like, nope, I can’t, I cannot do it. And then, uh, I remember one year I made $5,000, and I’m like, what the, but I was like, but I got paid in other ways. Eventually, that didn’t last. I was like, fuck that. I’m wasn’t money. I need to get paid. I got a baby. Um, so, um, you know, that has definitely changed, man. There’s no doubt. I’m at a different point now, so, but again, um, it was that point where somebody like you know, was just like compassionate and was, you know, believed in me and I, that alone gave me the ability to, to change the studio around us. What happened?

 

31:31          Yes. Awesome. Is Linda. Hey, if you want to hear the rest of her story and find out how she increased her memberships by 45% creating a level of financial freedom that gave her the ability and the free time to take care of her family, then join our private Facebook group, Yoga entrepreneur secrets. Be sure to drop your email in the member questions. We’ll send the other half of that episode right over to you. This is the only place you can get access to this, so be sure to join Yoga Entrepreneurs Secrets Facebook group now. We look forward to you joining us in the next episode of YES, Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. Peace.

 

32:04          Yes, thanks so much for listening to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. Do you have a question that you’d like us to answer raw and uncut on the podcast? If you want your questions answered, all you need to do is head over to Apple podcast, and do three simple things. One; rate and review telling us what you think of the podcast. Two; in that review, ask anything you want related to yoga, and three; if you want to shout out, leave your Instagram handle or name and that’s it. Then listen in to hear your question answered Live, raw and uncut. Join us next time on Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets Podcast. Thanks.