Don't Sweat the Small Stuff - The Key to a Healthy Dance Studio Owner Life

Hey, everyone.

Nathan here with another podcast episode. It's been a huge week here in Dance Principles United land with Amanda and Beck off on their way to Dance Teacher Web in Vegas. So we have reached back into the vault with one of our most listened to episodes in the Dance Principles United podcast. I know it's one that so many dance studio owners absolutely love. We got so much great feedback and it's always a great time to hear this one to help us on our balance between being a studio owner and all the other things that we have to do in our life. So we hope that you enjoy this episode of the Dance Principles United Podcast.

Hello, friends. I'm Amanda Barr. And I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan. And welcome to Dance Principles United, the podcast. Together, we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio. Join us as we talk everything from marketing systems, studio culture, motherhood, life, and everything in between. This is the Dance Principles United Podcast.

Hello, podcast land. Welcome back to another episode of the Dance Principles United Podcast. You get Nathan and Bec in your ears today, and we're super excited to talk about something. It's one of those things. So many of our podcast episodes start with us talking or jamming about something and then we're like, you know what, we should really record a podcast about that. This. And this is exactly where we're at today.

Aren't we becoming totally, especially me with my studio in the last few weeks, I feel like I've been doing this. And so I chatted to our studio growth club members this morning about it. And I think it's really important for all of us to remember, and that is don't sweat it on the small stuff. And we're all capable of it. Look, being a studio owner is hard, right, Nath? Like, it is really hard being a studio owner.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's a. It's a very, like, we always talk about it. It's a really, really unique business to own. It's something that we are always dealing with a lot of emotions. We're dealing with people's children. Right. It's their pride and joy. It's something that people especially like, if we're talking about parents, that we often deal with people generally or not generally, but quite often are not rational about things that happen to their kids. We are guilty of it as parents ourselves. And between that and sometimes staff members and things like that, it can become a highly emotive environment which sometimes leads us to, I guess, not making the best business, business decisions or like you said, blowing Things a little bit out.

Of proportion and, like, taking things personally, you know, like, it's. I. I feel like we're probably on the end of business owners where we really do let the emotions come into play, where we're creative, emotional beings anyway, most studio owners. And also we're so passionate about what we do, and we put our heart and soul into what we do every single day. And so then when people come and attack us or attack our business, they're not really attacking us so much. We do take very, very personally. And I think sometimes I'm really good at that. Like, I'm really good at seeing parents as clients. You know, that I changed it from parent to client for that reason. In my head, I'm usually good at those boundaries, but the last few weeks, I've not been so great. I've really got to rethink about this stuff, which is great. That's why I love doing the podcast. I love talking to you and Amanda and the studio growth club members and. And, you know, really realizing that within my own self and self reflecting. I think it's important.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's something. As dentistry owners, we need to have a thick skin because like we said, sometimes, whether it's parents, like you said, feeling like they're attacking you, which they're often not, whether it's parents or staff or even students, sometimes, Sometimes we've just got to make sure that we are the bigger person and that what we. What we perceive as people saying mean things about us or our business or. There's often so much more to the story, and sometimes we just need to. Instead of sitting there and festering about it and playing situations and response out a thousand times in our head, sometimes we just need to step back, zoom out a bit, and let it wash off our back. Like you said, don't sweat the small stuff. And I think a key thing that we've both learned over the years, like you just touched on, is that whole notion that they are clients first, not friends, which can be a really hard one for studio owners. Right?

Totally. So hard to. To separate that. So hard to realize that something's a business decision or a business choice and not so much a friendship or an emotional choice. And we. We get close to the kids, too. You know, we see them as. As a part of our family. We really care about the kids, and that makes those decisions hard as well. But you do have to try really, really hard to take the emotion out of it. Sit back and ask yourself, is this a good business decision? Sometimes and, and that can be hard. That can be really hard.

Yeah. And it's. It's like in some ways, sometimes it can be a little sad. But what we. One thing we learned over 20 plus years of doing this is that people will always put their children's best interest first, and that's okay. And so we just made sure that when we were making decisions, like, we learned a few hard lessons along the way, but we came to a point, it was sort of about 10 years in, when we had one of those big issues that we all had when the star student leaves type scenario. But. And like so many studio owners, you know that. That blurred line between client and friend that sort of, you know, been crossed here and there and things like that. And obviously those sort of situations upset us. But from that point on, we sort of sat there and our coach at the time basically gave us some. Some pretty tough love and that notion that they're going to put their child first and that's okay. But from that point forward, we made sure we were putting ourselves first and we made sure that decisions we were making were putting ourself and our business and our family first. Doesn't mean we didn't provide fantastic customer service, fantastic training and all those sorts of things. It just meant that we were yet looking after number one first. And that's okay.

Oh, I love that change of mindset. That is a huge change of mindset because that, that's like we do as business owners, as studio owners, we always put everyone else first before ourselves, before our business, and certainly before our family. So that was even a moment for me then, Nate, that was super amazing. So we've got a few. Yeah, you go, sorry, that's.

That's the thing that can lead to that, to that resentment and those big emotions. Right. You get. I can't believe after everything I've done and I've done this and I've done that and I've sacrificed my time with my family, like, that's on you if you do that. As hard as it is to say sometimes. Yeah. If you've put others before yourself and your family, that's not their fault if they turn around and leave or do something. Yeah. So that's, that's where it was super importantly, it's an absolute massive mindset shift for us that really helped down the line.

I absolutely love that so much. We've got a few tips for you guys on a few different ways to deal with this and do it, because I don't just like saying you have to don't sweat the small stuff when it's so much harder than that. Right. Like, it's not as simple as that. So the first one is make quick decisions. Like, I think sometimes something happens and then we decide that we have to talk to every single person in the world about it and get everyone's opinion and then we have to think about it in our head and then we just, like, we just. That can go on for days and days of, of that decision really clouding everything inside you. And what I said today to our Studio Growth Club members was if you're doing that and you're spending days thinking about it, you're probably not being as productive as you could be. You certainly not pushing the needles in your business. And so therefore that's so much wasted time. And I also think most of the time I'm not saying to not think about things, like, I'm not saying to act straight away without, you know, actually thinking about it. But I think most of the time our first initial reaction is probably the best one anyway.

100%. And yeah, obviously sometimes, like, sometimes we've had some of our clients and members and things like that, especially when we, you know, we're a business that shuts at sort of 8:15, 9:00pm, sometimes even later. By no means should you be replying if you get that email as you're finishing teaching at 9pm by no means should you, when we say deal with it straight away, by no means, like, deal with that, go home and sleep with it. Sleep on it. Sorry. But then jump up the next morning. Fresh mindset. You've thought about it a bit more. Go in first thing that morning and.

Deal with it 100%. And if you are asking advice, make sure you're asking the right sort of people advice. Maybe it's a, you know, another studio owner that, you know, who's got a really great mindset on dealing with clients and how to deal with clients and, you know, maybe it's, I don't know, sometimes I think we talk to the wrong people about it, if that makes sense. Nathan. They're also emotional people and, you know, they're seeing it from the wrong kind of perspective. That's why I love Tribe and sdc, because I know that everyone in there's on the same level and they're all talking about that stuff from real experience of being that studio owner.

Oh, 100%. And we would know that with our own experience and you would have it with your, your paw stuff as well. At Dance Sensations, we had, had, have the most incredible, amazing team there. They are super loyal, incredibly hard working. So when, you know, let's say it was a parent issue, which we all have, right? A parent issue that said something silly that's, you know, maybe said like some sort of. Not an attacker. That's the wrong word. But a parent's gone off the handle a little bit. And so often our staff would, like, leap to our defense, which is fantastic and it's lovely and it's loyal. But what they would sometimes come up with as responses or reactions to those things would be highly charged and highly emotive as well. Because it's coming from a place of love towards us as the business owners. But it's not always the best business decision because, like I said, they're looking out for us as the studio owners as well, which is so lovely. But sometimes as much as we lean on them, and sometimes they would have graded advice, sometimes their advice, we need to sort of sit back a bit and reach out to other business owners, people that understand it from that business perspective as well.

Totally. And I. I think that reactive reaction which I used to have all the time can be so detrimental. And, you know, you've just got to really think, like, we say this all the time. Don't we know not everyone's life is around dance? Like, not everyone's life is based around dance. Just because ours is. You know, sometimes we just think, how could they not know that? Or how could they not that? And that's, you know, it's. They're normal people, that's how. And their life isn't revolving around dance 247 like ours is.

And that's okay as well. Yeah, but, yeah, just making sure before we sort of move on to the next one. Beck. We sort of just so people aren't confused. We're talking about. Because we sort of said make sure you deal with it, but not straight. Like, we're talking about making haste, not speed. So we make sure we want to deal with these things. We don't want to let them drag on for days and days on end, but we don't want to go back within five minutes with an emotional answer. Making sure that you deal with something quickly and it's okay. Like 24 hours. Dealing with something is quick as well, guys. Yeah, or going home and sleeping on it for 12 hours. But making sure we get it off our plate relatively quickly when we've had a chance to cool down and think calmly and rationally about a good response. And that sort of like, leads into the next One that I know we always talk about Beck and you've talked about that. It's something that dealing with conflict is something that you personally have worked on a lot over the years and you found that quite often, too many studio owners, we see hide from the. The simple. The simple. Go back to these issues, which is often picking up the phone and making the call. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. That is if you can pick up the phone and call and, you know, once you've got the email or whatever the complaint is, and just pick up the phone and say, hey, I got your email, can we chat about it? I guarantee you, nine times out of ten, by the end of that conversation, the conversation, it's completely diffused. It's when you email back cranky and then they email back cranky and then that keeps going on. Like, it's just so much easier to be a keyboard royer. But honestly, picking up the phone, still having understanding from that, try and see it from their point of view. I always try and sit myself in their chair first and say, right, why have they felt this way? What's happened? Blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, just picking up the phone, not emailing back, that's net. I don't know. I feel like that's not the best way to go with it.

Oh, 100% agree. And because, like, there's a few things that happen there. Exactly. Like you said, when you go back to the. When you go back to the cranky email, with a cranky email yourself, basically, as much as you try and make it nice that your tone can sometimes come across right, the. The parent is still often angry and fuming about, and then what they'll sit there and do is they'll sit there and try and pick it apart piece by piece. Well, you said this. So I say it just goes back and forth and back and forth. Like I said, picking up the phone and calling them often just disarms them straight away. That's the absolute key. And then what you get to do as well is you get to listen. Because sometimes what we too often hear and we've all been guilty of, is sometimes we go on a bit of a crusade and try and solve the wrong problem. We get that email and we think it's a bit of a red flag to us. We get cranky and angry and so we go off on a bit of a tirade, thinking we're solving what that cranky email's about, when that wasn't it at all. And we've just, like poured a bit of petrol on what could have been an easily solved problem. So when you make those phone calls, it's really easy, like you said, just to say, can we talk about it? And then just be silent. It's the best strategy I ever received. You just go silent and just let them talk and listen. The key to solving these problems is. Is often listening, because too often, we just talk too much.

Totally. And I think sometimes saying you're sorry for things as well can be a real diffuser in that, like, I'm really sorry that you feel like that. You know, like, it's just like if you come in from that humble position, I find if they're really angry and you're like, look, I'm really sorry that this has happened, you know, talk me through it, or whatever it might be starting with that can be a really big game changer as well. I know we don't always like to say we're sorry, but it will really help diffuse the situation.

Yeah, absolutely. And then another really great strategy that I got taught once, once upon a time as well, was once you sit and listen and calmly listen, then you just reflect back. Okay, not a problem. Thanks so much, Beck. What I'm hearing is that you're upset about the fact that BB was taken out of that front line. Is that correct? And whatever it is, just reflecting back again. Then often one of two things happens. Sometimes they're like, oh, that sounds really stupid.

Yeah, Yeah, I love that.

And it just. It turns the situation. It turns like the. Like the. The temperature on the situation down straight away, or like I said, sometimes in our heads, we're trying to solve a different problem. So we reflect back on them and they're like, well, no, actually, that's not the problem. This is the problem. And then you get to listen again.

Yep. That is so, so smart. I love that. And make sure you're teaching your staff these strategies as well. You know, it's all good us saying that, but making sure that your staff have exactly what Nate just said and that they know to repeat that back to the client to make sure they know what the issue is or whatever that might be. Make sure they're not getting hyper with the client in the waiting area. If the client's got their shouting voice on. Teach your staff to stay calm. That's the best thing you can do, is just to keep your voice calm. Teach your staff to say, I'm so sorry that that happened to you today. Teach them to say that. You know, teach them to not be too defensive, because that never works in that in that high intensity environment, right?

100%. 100%. And another thing we were talking about, Beck, that we wanted to chat about is like in, in terms of don't sweating the small stuff and sometimes letting those, letting those things wash off our back a bit is when we get, we all know we have those things. We get the parent come to us, everybody feels this way and then launches into something. What's, what's the key to dealing with those sorts of situations often that can really help us?

Well, my staff do this all the time and they'll come in and they will say to me, everyone's really cranky about the concert rehearsal or whatever it might be, right? And I'll say, okay, cool. How many people is everyone? Three. There's three emails. I'm like, okay, well that's three out of 600, so that's not too bad. So let's just deal with each email individually. But it is true, the loudest parents are always the ones that we listen to the most. And so I always say to my staff and I always say to myself, how many people actually do feel this way? You know, and if someone comes to me like a parent and says that I'm, I always say to them, nath, great, let me know which parents so I can chat to them about it. Like, and then they're like, oh, well, it's just, it's Kelly. It's just one person, you know, like it's just their friends that two of them. But I think, like, it's really, really important to just reflect. And it's so easy for us to make business decisions based on the loudest parent because they're the ones who are there. And so then we think I need to change everything that I'm doing because of this very loud parent. But actually probably got all these other parents who are quite fine and happy with how you're doing things 100%.

And that's why we always talk about the keys to knowing what you and your studio is about and what your values are. So when you get those sorts of things, you can just stick to them. You can tell them exactly why you do things. Everything's about for you at Pause. Creating Confident Kids. Yeah, it just helps those sorts of things just help you bring everything back to why you do it, what you're doing, and just helps you diffuse those situations heaps and heaps of times. Right?

Yes. And like thinking about this now, Nath, it's great how you said before, put yourself first, put your business values first, put your what, what's your dream for your business? This shouldn't be a parent's dream. It shouldn't be what they want. It should be what you want. And when someone comes to us, we always listen. I'm not going to say we don't listen. We definitely listen to client feedback, we definitely listen to if they've got issues. But we always sit back and go, is this what we want? You know, because of course, parents want things done their way because that's them. But it's your business and you need to run things your way 100%.

And that sort of ties into what we were talking about. And again, I'm being mindful here because I. I could understand how people would think we're sort of saying the opposite things here. When we talked about making sure we deal with things swiftly and the fact that 24 hours is swiftly when we say we want to deal with it straight away. Too often we see people let things drag on for three days, five days a week, three or four weeks, whatever it is, but dealing with things quickly. It's okay to, like you said, like to hear some parents and sit and think on it for a little bit and reflect back, even with your team say, hey, we've had Susie's mum say this. I know it's not the way we've always done it, but I do kind of hear where she's coming from as a parent now, what do you guys think about it? And have a bit of a discussion with your team around it. Like you said, it's important to listen to feedback. It doesn't mean we've got to do exactly what they say because especially if it goes against our values or things like that. But it is important to listen to things sometimes and sit and reevaluate. Even if you stay with exactly what you've always done, that's okay as well. But it's super important to sit back and reevaluate every now and again.

Yeah, absolutely. And I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again. When we had this cranky circus parent come in. This was about 10 years ago. Cranky circus parent come in. The concert was that weekend. She didn't know there was a concert on, even though we'd sent 5,000 emails. Obviously she didn't know, you know, what was going on. She had. She'd never met a child's teacher because we don't let parents into circus because it's too crazy in there. And so she was really cranky and her kid had got into the car crying because mom didn't know about all the things. And, and that was a really great time for me to go. Fair call. Like, okay, I self reflected, I thought about it, I thought, right, how could our team could have stopped this from happening? That was a fair call. That's when I opted into band and you know, decided to get an app with the studio and decided to share each class time with parents so they could see what their kids were doing. I did really listen to that client. I could have gone, what an idiot. As if you couldn't have read the 10,000 emails we sent out and there's posters up like, come on. And you know, I would have been a studio owner who did that when I first started my studio, definitely. But I didn't do that. I self reflected. We completely changed the way we were doing things and it actually has been the biggest, one of the biggest game changers in the studio. So I definitely think it's important to listen to them 100%.

And that's exactly what you're talking about. Everybody or people that listen to the podcast know how much of a Gary V. Fanboy I am. And one of his things is always making sure you point thumbs, not fingers. And that whole notion of pointing fingers is blaming somebody else for the issue. But when you point thumbs, that's taking some responsibility. Okay, maybe this was something to do with, with how we do things or how I do things. So like you said, like if you, you could have sat there at the parent and pointed fingers and go, how could you not have read, yeah, the 47, 000 emails and the posters, I'm standing right in front of the poster. Look at it here and all those sorts of things. But instead you turned around, pointed some thumbs and thought, okay, maybe we can do a little bit better here. Which is super, super important. Like I said, definitely doesn't mean you react to every little thing, but you quickly evaluate it and make that quick decision.

And that's what a leader is. I think, you know, you guys are leaders in your business. Leaders always self reflect that I blame. They look at themselves and go, right, what could I have done differently here to make this better, to make this not happen, to make this whatever it might be, that's what true leaders who truly grow their businesses do.

Yeah. And that sort of ties into something else we were talking about earlier on today is that I think too often we're quick to punish rather than educate. And that's something we do with parents. And that ties into that story. You were Just telling. Yeah. Too often we sit there and just think, oh, no, they should. You should have known this, you should have done this, you should have done that. But have we educated them enough around. Around that issue? Do we educate our parents enough about what happens if they miss a comp? We understand that these things have to happen if they've got a family wedding or things like that. Do they understand when their kid misses a comp that you like that you basically lose the two or three lessons before it?

No, they don't. And they don't understand blocking. Like people are always saying, you know, teachers and studio owners are going, oh, it's so annoying because we're constantly re blocking and blah, blah, blah. I guarantee you, if I talk to parents, they would not understand what blocking was. They wouldn't even realize that they. I know you think it's obvious, but they would. Wouldn't realize that kids have certain spots on stage and that we look at that, you know, that they have to be in windows and it's all patterns and we get marked on that.

And then it actually takes time to do that.

Yeah, they would have no idea about that at all. They would not understand that concept unless you educate them. And I love that so much. You know, we're too quick to punish rather than educate. That is so, so true. I think as well, we're too quick to judge people who maybe can't get hair perfect or can't do the makeup perfect. Like, not everyone's like us guys, you know, like, not everyone knows how to do a really slicked, immaculate bun. And, you know, we're so like, oh, how could they not know that? Well, they probably didn't grow up in the dance world or maybe they're just not that great at it. And I think sometimes parents are trying to do their best. I had this at the last comp, Nate. I had a little girl, Mia. She's a such a hard worker and such a good kid. And she's one of our front kids. She doesn't do privates or anything like that. And her hair was atrocious, like, so bad. Mum's just obviously terrible at doing hair. And one of my staff started to say to her, oh, my goodness me, your hair. And I said, oh, me. And mum's put so much effort into your hair, hasn't she? She's just missed a little bit here. Let's just try and fix it up a bit. So it's just like, it's not the kid's fault. It's also not Mom's fault. Don't go off of them about that stuff. You know, realize that parents don't have that massive dance background that we all do.

Or quite often there might be more to the story. Right. There might have been something else going home on at home that morning before the comp that meant that May as mum had 30 seconds to try and put her hair up and get to the comp. Yeah. Sometimes we need to be empathetic and understanding and that can really help us deal with a lot of those situations.

100 and I always tell my staff the meatloaf story. So mum's been at home all day with the baby. She's dropped her child to school. She's there trying to clean everything up. She's making dinner. She's running late to go and get her little girl from dancing. She pulls the meatloaf out and she spills it all over the floor. Now she has no dinner for the kids and she gets in the car and then her little girl gets into the car upset about dancing and she comes in and explodes. It's like there's so many factors that happen before that for that mom to come in and explode. And sometimes we have to realize that as you said at the beginning of today, parents are emotional about their children and you know, if there's other things coming into play and a rationality comes in, then we need to understand that. And I, I think that's a really good story to tell your staff because when that cranky parent does come in, just get. Teach them to say to themselves, meatloaf story. And then, you know, they might have some understanding that, you know, parents do have. Gosh, parents have so many moving parts. Life is really tough when you've got multiple kids going to multiple things and you know, it's hard.

Yeah. And. And that helps. Exactly. Sort of what we wanted to, I think the message we want to convey in this week's podcast, that idea of sometimes you just need to let those things that come at us wash off our back. We need to build a thick skin and resilience as business owners, as density owners. Because often, like you said, the mum in that meatloaf story, she's going to come in and she's going to just sometimes unleash and there's. She might even say some, some things that are mean spirited, nasty, that are a bit of an attack. And if you let those affect you when at the end of the day it's got nothing to do with you.

Yeah.

If you let those things affect you, it's going to lead you to make poor decisions in your studio and be reactive yourself.

Exactly. So I hope we have helped you guys today with don't sweat it on the small stuff. I feel like there was a lot of content in there but you know, just really be self reflective in each situation and just, I don't know, think about how much time you want to give to that situation. We don't want to give it. Like Nathan said, three or four days. You know, 24 hours is enough and you know, use your time wisely to grow your business. That's what we want you guys to do.

Amazing. Well, thanks so much for joining us on today's podcast and we can't wait to be in person next week recording some podcasts for everybody from sunny Thailand. So we look forward to next week's podcast even more.

We sure do. Thanks guys. Have a great week. Bye everyone.