Better Teachers, Better Classes: Setting Staff Expectations In Your Dance Studio

Hello friends, I'm Amanda Barr.

And I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan, and welcome to Dance Principles United, the podcast.

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Hey guys, it's Beck here from the Dance Principles United podcast. Hope you are all super amazing. A little bit different today, I'm actually flying solo, um, and the reason for that is I have a really cool thing for you guys, um, that I'm going to chat to you about soon. Um, just a little PDF, because one of the things that's been coming up with a lot of our members is staff, how staff just don't do the basics, how they don't follow the basic expectations. I'm sure a lot of you out there are Feeling me on this. Um, and one of the things that we do in our staff training with our Studio Growth Club and Tribe members is just chatting through those expectations. Um, so I wanted to kind of go through, uh, different things that I think you could expect from your staff. Um, and also, you know, give you guys a little PDF, um, at the end of this so that you can take it with you and, um, give it to your staff and let them know the basic expectations that I think should come.

Mm-hmm.

In and around working for a dance studio. And I often think like some of these are so obvious to me as a studio owner and just are so basic. But as I have learned being, you know, a leader, things that I think are super basic are actually not, and they do need to be told these things. So I'm going to start with the basics. Um, come prepared for class. Now that sounds so obvious, like of course they should come prepared for class, but What I find a lot of studio owners complaining about is, you know, they just never come prepared for class is, you know, a complaint. And I'm like, well, did you tell them they have to? Well, no, because that's just obvious. Well, it is, but if you haven't set the expectation in the first place, it's a lot harder to then coach them in and around it. And, you know, if you've given them this PDF or you've said this stuff to them in staff training or whatever, wherever you use this PDF, um, at the end of the day, then you can go back to them and say, okay, Remember in that expectation thing that I sent you, it says come prepared for class, yet you've come today without your tap shoes and you're teaching a tap class, then that's one of the expectations and that's a non-negotiable. You need to come prepared. It just allows you to then say, hey, I told you this already and you haven't done it, so therefore this isn't okay. Don't be on your phone. Okay, now maybe some of you let them play the music from their phones. I do let my staff do that. So then we have to be more specific in and around this expectation. So it needs to be like, you can be on your phone for music, but every other app should be switched off your phone, and we certainly shouldn't see you scrolling on your phone on the cameras or in class time. So I love to look back on the cameras and see what my staff are doing. And I have cameras set up that can go to my phone, which you can get in pretty cheap now into your studios. Uh, and it's always very interesting where they're like, no, I wasn't scrolling. I was, um, I was just finding music. And then I show them, no, I'm, I think I know what scrolling looks like, and I'm pretty sure this is scrolling. Um, so, you know, just making sure that they know that expectation as well. Putting props and equipment away. Gosh, I hope there are so many of you out there. This makes me so cranky? Does it make you cranky? Let me know, um, inbox us and tell me. But this drives me insane that they cannot put props and equipment away. And I speak to them about it like this: it is respect for the next person coming in, and disrespect when you leave stuff there, and respect when it is a beautiful tidy room for them. But I still have this issue, guys, every week. Like, and I will walk in and go, why is the mat not put away? You know, I just think that it would be obvious if I'm an acro teacher that I would take the mat and put it back in its place. But apparently that's not obvious, and we still have to coach people around that. Anyway, let me know if you feel me on that. It drives me insane. Wear appropriate attire and shoes. Now, at my studio, all of the staff need to be in uniform. That's one of the things that we expect because we expect all our kids to be in uniform as well. But You know, like I just said with the tap shoes, like, don't come and teach a tap class without tap shoes. I once had— I'm not exaggerating— a teacher walk in in slippers. Slippers! This is not appropriate footwear, in my opinion, or professional footwear for them to walk in. You might need to be a bit more specific about what appropriate attire and shoes look like. For example, I've had preschool teachers come in before with their t-shirt tucked up under their Crop top with their stomach hanging out. No, that's not appropriate. I don't feel that's an appropriate outfit to wear for a preschool class. So sometimes we need to be really strict on them with that, okay? Don't sit down while teaching ever. Gosh, does anyone else feel me out with this? Honestly, we hide the chairs and somehow our teachers manage to sniff those chairs out and still bring them out and still sit down. And I talk about this every single week. I'm guilty of that. staff training and they still find a way to do it. But, again, if I come in and a teacher is sitting down, it is as simple as me walking into that classroom and saying to them, you guys know you're not allowed to sit down in class, so let's put the chair back, because I've given them that expectation. And mark the roles every lesson. Now, again, I think sometimes staff with this need the why. Why do we need to mark the roles? Well, it's— It allows us to know whether someone's in that class not being charged or is being charged. It allows us to call if the child's away for a few weeks and make sure that they're okay, because sometimes we've had situations where kids have been in hospital and we didn't even know about it, and marking the rolls helps with that. It helps the admin team to know what's going on in there. So that stuff is really, really important. Alright, let's move on to parent communication. Now, I've been saying this for a while now to clients, and I want you guys to really think about this, okay? If you go to the bubble tea shop and, you know, you've heard really cool things about this great new drink and you really want to try it out, and it's this new bubble tea and it sounds amazing, and so you've seen all this marketing in around it, and so you go to this bubble tea shop and then you drink the bubble tea and it is the most disgusting drink you've ever drank in your whole life. You'll never go back to that shop. Okay, now that's their product. Their product is the bubble tea. You want to hope that that bubble tea is pretty awesome because they've got this crazy good marketing around it. Your product is your classes and your teachers. That is your product. You can have the most insane marketing on earth, but if a child goes into a class or a parent is not happy with the product of that class, then your product is no good. So this is why I'm so big on staff training. This is why I'm so big on talking to you guys out there about the importance of making sure that every class is incredible, because if you're not, then you're not bothering to have a good product. Okay, if that bubble tea isn't selling, they're probably going to try and change the recipe up. Are you trying to change the recipe of your classes up, or do you just keep letting the same old teachers do the same old things week after week even though you know it's not best because you're avoiding the confrontation. Anyway, just putting that out there. I digress. Parent communication. It is so important for your staff to come out and talk to parents and make parents feel comfortable with them, make parents build a relationship with them. If parents don't build that relationship, they don't value the product of the class and they will opt out really quickly. Okay, so Making sure that your teachers develop a relationship is very, very important. So what ways do we do that here? Always chat to parents before and after class, even if they have back-to-back classes. I say to my staff, just go out and even if you're talking to the parents as a group in the waiting area, even if you just talk to 1 or 2 parents and just go out with a child and say, oh my gosh, she is working so hard on her flexibility. Wow, she's really improving. You must be so proud of her. Oh yeah, she's really practicing at home. I can see that. That is a 3-second conversation that is going to mean so much to that parent. Posting on Band, we use Band app to record what's happening in the classes and the way I talk to the staff about this is, you know, if you go to a soccer game, you're watching the soccer game, you watch them rehearse, not rehearse, you watch them practice every single week on the field as a parent, you're a part of that community. In dance, our parents are not a part of that, and even if you have TV screens, they're just watching a silent class. They're not actually listening to what the teacher is saying within that class. So we need to give them a window. What are they doing in class? How is it looking? The same way that schools now have apps for the exact same reason, so we can see what the kids are doing in their classes, and so parents appreciate it. So posting on Band before and after every single class is Very, very important and explaining that the why of that to your staff so that parents can see what's happening. Sharing your classes on social media. I always talk to my teachers about every single genre is important and we need to show them the incredible things that people are doing on social media. It's also social proof. So if we tag the kids' parents in the post, then they reshare that post, that is free marketing. If you do that every single day that you have classes on with different parents, we are then marketing to hundreds of people without spending any money on it. So you want that sharing on social media as much as possible. I give all of my staff logins to our social media account and they can post on the story. Do I tell them what sort of things to post? Yes. Are we careful to post certain types of things? Of course. Um, you know, and teaching them to be really careful with that sort of stuff, of course. But at the end of the day, you want to create social proof. And the last thing with parent communication is saying to your staff that there is always an expectation to upsell classes. You know, they should be watching the kids in their class. Maybe there's someone who's got beautiful feet, okay, in their jazz class, and then going out to the parent and saying, oh my gosh, I don't know if you know this, but Olivia has the most She has the most incredible feet. She really should be doing ballet. She would be so good at ballet. That is imperative. If you're not in the class and you don't know that Olivia doesn't have good feet, your teachers do, and your teachers need to go out to parents and talk to them about it. I always talk about, um, there was these kids in my studio, um, 3 sisters, and the mum had been looking everywhere for classes for them for contortion and couldn't find any. And she found us because we were advertising circus. So she thought, all right, I'll try this circus thing. So she brought one of the sisters in, the older sister, to try the circus class. And the 2 little ones were kind of playing in the waiting area, and they were doing bridges and mounts and all these sorts of things. And I went to the mum, went over to the mum, and I said, why don't you put those 2 little ones in our contortion class? They would be so great at that. They're so flexible. And she was like, oh my gosh, I didn't even know you did that. That is exactly what I have been looking for this entire time is a contortion class. Now, if I didn't go and have that conversation with that parent, those children would never ever have actually opted into our classes. They became 3 of our biggest, biggest clients. So not only did those 3 kids end up doing absolutely everything at my studio, the oldest girl went on to become a professional circus performer. The middle girl just graduated last year and she's one of my best teachers at the studio and she's hoping to go on to cruise ship contracts. So that was a huge thing to happen out of one simple conversation. If I hadn't have had that conversation, the older girl actually wasn't that interested in the circus class at the time and that parent would have left. And telling these stories to your staff is going to be where it's at for them to understand the importance of speaking to parents about upselling classes. All right. Dealing with conflict. We really do need to make sure that our teachers understand the expectations in and around dealing with conflict. What if you're not there and they have to deal with a really angry parent, you know, and when a child gets into the car emotional, Parents get angry, and so we've got to help our staff with how to deal with that. So what's the first thing we need to do? Take away the emotion of the situation. Explain to your staff exactly that. And, you know, parents can get very emotional when their children are upset. Even if you think that you were right and the child is wrong, the best way to bring the parent down is to actually say, I'm so sorry that your child's upset. That's the first thing to say, I'm so sorry, because that will immediately bring them down, and teaching your staff to do that is very important. So the things that I say to my staff here is remove the emotion, okay, don't take it personally is what that means, try and see it from the parent point of view that this child has come into the car very angry and upset, stay calm, okay, stay calm. Always do your best to resolve the issue and always be apologetic about it. Okay. Oh, I'm so sorry. That's not what I meant to do today. I didn't mean to upset her in that way. Here's what actually happened from my point of view, but I'm sorry she felt like that, or whatever it might be. And always check in with your studio owner before taking action, especially if it didn't involve them. It might have been from 3 classes ago. And rather than dealing with it, teaching them to say, look, that wasn't in my class, I'm really, really sorry that happened, I'll definitely let Ms. Beck know that that has occurred tonight and I'm sure she'll give you a call tomorrow. Alright, so that's dealing with conflict. Class conduct, they need to know the expectations in and around what you want out of classes. So the first thing that I say to them is say every child's name at least once in a positive way. Now, that is pretty hard to do. I have an 8 and under troop class and we have 34 kids in that class and trying to say every child's name in a positive way in that class can be a lot, but we really do try to do that and just, wow, Georgia, I love your face, you look amazing over there, great job, Eliza, you know, it's just trying to do that, okay. Giving equal attention to every student. Now it's real easy to give attention to that center front kid who's doing a great job, And real easy to give attention to that kid at the back who's mucking around and being, you know, not so attentive, but what about that quiet child in the middle who's doing what they're told? Do they get equal attention? Explaining to them that every single child in the class is paying equal money and therefore deserves equality. Something that I'm really big on, and you may not be, but it's something in my expectations is don't play too many games. And if you are playing games, they need to have reasoning behind them. So, you know, I play a game called the blocking game where we have to run as fast as we can into our next spots and see if we can make a really good pattern. It's not really a game though, is it? Like, it's not like— I hate it when my staff play musical bobs or, you know, just silly games like that that I just think is a complete waste of everybody's time, effort, and money when they should be doing proper things. So, and I don't think parents like people— kids to be playing too many games in class either. And make sure your class is organized and prepared every week. Nothing worse than them going, oh, hang on, I haven't cut the music here, or, oh, hang on, I just need to find this prop, or whatever it might be. Just be better organized than that. Okay, outside of the class, it's important to have an expectation around being mindful of social media presence. Now, I'm sure everybody has different rules and regulations in and around this, but it's really important for them to understand that what they put out on social media, if they're friends with children, it's kind of important, right? Like, you know, a lot of these professional dancers put quite adult type of photos up, for example, and if they're friends with younger people on social media or with parents Is that a vibe? Do we want them to be seeing that? Maintaining professional interactions when talking to parents. Are they allowed to inbox the parents on social media without you? Do you want that to be a thing? Maybe you do, but maybe you don't. So just thinking about those expectations and what you want out of it and making sure you're telling them what is expected. And then also being friends with students. Is that a thing that's allowed in your studio or not allowed? And if it's not allowed in your head but you haven't actually said it to them, you need to say it and you need to monitor that stuff, okay? Oh, communication with your studio owner. I was just on a call with some SGC members and one of them was like, my staff are not getting back to me and I'm sick of it. So answering and acknowledging tests and posts on your forms of communication. And again, I think we as leaders also have to be careful with this and be understanding of people's time because messaging them at 10 PM on a Sunday night and expecting them to reply immediately is probably not very fair, but at the same time, messaging them at 10 AM on a Monday morning and expecting some sort of acknowledgement and answer within a couple of hours is important. So I always say to my staff, okay, these are the hours that I'll message you and this is the expectation that you reply to me within 2 to 3 hours. Handing your music and info in on time. How many of us get so frustrated when we're having to chase music, chase music, chase critical parts, chase, you know, it's annoying. So trying to give them the expectation or give them the date. This is the date that this is meant to be in by. Covering your classes if you're going to be away. So if my staff were away, I make it an expectation that it's up to them to cover their classes. Or their shift. And you know, this happens across the board. If you work for McDonald's and you're away, or you know you're going to be away, you have to cover your shift. Same should happen in our dance studio. Okay, I'm not— I know that things happen last minute and all of a sudden they get a vomiting bug or whatever, but 9 times out of 10, they know well and truly enough in time. If they've got the flu the day before, they know they're probably not going to come in the next day. They should be messaging other members of your team and saying, "Hey, can anyone please cover me tomorrow? I'm feeling really sick." That is not up to you, and give as much notice as possible for holidays, etc. All right, last thing I want to talk to you guys about is expectations in and around your admin team. Okay, now there's nothing worse than a grumpy person at the front desk. Who is too— I'm way too busy and important to talk to anybody here. Okay, that is not a vibe. It is not what you want your admin team to be. If you go into any shop or restaurant or anything like that, I want you to really think about customer service. What makes you feel great in customer service? What makes you feel bad in customer service? How is your team making people feel when they walk into your building? Is it an amazing, happy, great Feeling, or is it a cranky, horrible, awful feeling? So you need to greet every single person if you're an admin team member, and never be too busy. The customer is the most important thing, not the email that you're getting back to. Own the room. You know, make those kids and parents feel so special in that waiting area. Be caring. Be confident with your answers. If you don't know an answer, ask. Don't just tell the wrong answer, or don't say. I don't really know the answer to that. I've had team do that before. Be understanding that not everyone reads emails or gets dance. And this is a big one because, you know, I have so many members say to me, oh, I'm so sick of parents who don't listen to emails or don't read emails. And I'm always like, guys, I'm the first person to not read emails at my child's school. I'm the one that just got the phone call then saying you still haven't filled out the permission note for Phoenix for next week. So parents are super busy. Please be understanding of that. Also, just because we grew up doing dance and it's obvious to us that stockings go under a leotard, for example, it is not obvious to the general public. Also, dance is not the be-all and end-all for them, and nor should it be. It is a recreational children's activity, and that's what they're opting their children into. So I've really learned that over the years, guys, and I used to just expect way too much and for parents to know everything there is to know about dance, and that's really unfair. So making sure your admin team is understanding and doesn't say to them, oh, you could have read the email, and just be like, oh yeah, no, let me go through that with you. Okay, that's really important. And obviously the last one for the admin team is making sure you know your studio policies, procedures, and expectations. Now guys, if you feel like you need to be better at this with your staff and you think that you could really improve on this, then I would love to gift you a PDF where you guys can add and subtract things as well that has all of these expectations on it. I think it's a great place to start with your team if you've never done this. Please inbox us and we can send that PDF through to you guys and you can use it as a tool to really start honing in on these expectations with your staff. And as I said, once you have these expectations in place, it's much easier then to go in or to talk to a staff member and say, hey, don't forget there's an expectation for you to post on social media at least once every time that you're teaching something amazing that you're doing in class. Can you make sure you're doing that, please? All right. I hope you guys have enjoyed today's podcast. Uh, reach out if you would like that PDF and have a great week, guys. Thanks, friends.

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