How increasing her pricing helped a struggling yoga teacher fill her classes
Is your business losing money every month through missed opportunities? Find out how changing her pricing helped a struggling yoga teacher fill her classes – and earn more.
It’s very easy, when you run your own business, to become ‘blind’ to it. You assume that the only way it can work is the way it is working.
But there’s always the opportunity to make changes that can help you to earn more while working less – just by implementing good business practice. And to demonstrate how, I’m going to share the story of Helen, a struggling yoga teacher and explain how I helped her to turn around her business by making some simple changes.
Why Helen’s yoga business was struggling
Helen teaches Iyengar yoga from her home studio and local halls. She has many years of experience and is trained to a high level.
However, despite Helen’s experience she was finding it difficult to earn a good living from her yoga classes. She charged £10 a session for drop-ins, and some students paid her £40 for four week blocks. Attendance at her classes was hit and miss, and it was tricky keeping on top of who needed to pay her £40, reminding them and checking they had paid.
The crunch moment for Helen came when she was turned down for a mortgage as she didn’t earn enough and her income was not consistent. So she asked me for help.
For me there were two key problems with Helen’s business model: she wasn’t charging enough for her level of experience, and it required too much admin (and left too many gaps for people to fall through).
So I helped her completely update it. We decided to only offer yoga on a monthly standing order (much like a gym membership) and put the price up to £50 a month. We also decided how many weeks a year Helen would have as a holiday, which would be included in the monthly payments.
We eliminated the drop in arrangement, but for people who didn’t want to come regularly we created a new three-month flexi-pass that gave them six classes over a three month period. This plan cost £90 and all classes had to be taken within the three months.
Just two months on and Helen was earning more and even had a waitlist
This new business model meant that Helen earned more from her classes, gave her a consistent, predictable income and dramatically reduced her admin.
I helped Helen write emails to her students outlining the new plan and set a date for it to start. I also counselled her on how to deal with any pushback (be polite but stick to the arrangement; if they weren’t happy they could find another yoga class).
Helen was understandably nervous about increasing her prices and letting people know about the new arrangement, but she emailed all her students and only received negative feedback from three, who ultimately chose to leave her classes.
However, she was able to replace all three students within two weeks. And just two months later, all her classes were full. Helen had gone from struggling to find students to actually having a waitlist, and was considering adding more classes to cope with demand.
She was also now earning a consistent, increased monthly income and spent much less time on admin. Plus she had PAID holiday every year, something she never thought she could have as a self-employed business owner.
What happened when Helen increased her prices AGAIN
About 18 months after Helen changed her packages and increased her pricing, she needed to raise her fees again. The cost of living crisis meant that her overheads, including rent, had grown and she asked me for help in communicating this to her students.
Helen’s suggestion was to increase everyones’s monthly fees by £3 a month. This meant a student on a £50 a month plan would now pay £53. I recommended instead that she round it up to £5 a month more. Not only do people prefer round numbers, but the extra £2 a month would make little difference to students, but collectively have a big impact on Helen.
With 100 students paying an extra £2 a month (on top of Helen’s proposed £3) she would earn £200 more a month.
Helen followed my suggestion and I helped edit an email she sent out to students. Every student happily accepted the new prices.
Why did this work?
All too often we’re scared to define our business terms and ask for the money we deserve and should be paid. But it just means that we struggle for money and, like Helen, make more work for ourselves.
By having the confidence to outline your terms and set the price you should be charging (it’s not about trying to squeeze as much as you can out of people, but charging the correct market rate for your service or products), you indicate your value to your customers or clients.
And that, in turn, increases their confidence in you. It also highlights your value to them and makes them more appreciative of you.
Being servile and bending to your customers’ every wish does not make them respect or like you any more. Nor does keeping your prices low so they like or will stay with you. In fact, it can do the opposite.
Time and time again I have learned that when you have the confidence to set your terms, you’ll find it easier to attract customers who are happy to pay your rates and love what you do.
Does your business model and pricing need help?
Changing Helen’s business model and pricing has completely transformed her business. She now has a waiting list, earns a good income every month and spends very little time on admin. And that change was made in just one hour.
Just think: What changes could I help you make to YOUR business in just one hour? How much time and stress could you save? How much more money could you make – without working any harder (or even, like Helen, working less)?
From experience, there’s often just one or two things that are stopping under-performing businesses from achieving their full potential. And it’s virtually impossible to spot them yourself; you’re just too close to your business.
There’s huge value in having an outside expert run their eye across your business and identity opportunities for improvement. That’s why I work with a business consultant myself every month!
If you’d like help transforming your business and identifying ways you can earn more by working less hard, you too can book an hour with me. Here’s how it works:
- You book a business transformation session with me here.
- I then email you to agree a date and send you a questionnaire.
- You return the questionnaire so I can research your business and prepare.
- We have our hour-long business transformation session.
- I email you afterwards with agreed action points for you.
- You check in with me at an agreed date to update me on your progress.
I know few businesses that DON’T have money ‘left on the table’ – income they could be earning but are missing out on right now. Just think how much extra money I can find for you in an hour, like Helen (our session brought in several hundred pounds extra for Helen every month).
So if you’re serious about earning more money and running a more efficient business, book a business transformation session with me now.
If you have any questions about the sessions, you can email me directly here.
Photo by Kaylee Garrett
