From School Halls to 480+ Student Growth: Maree's Dance Studio Glow-Up

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. Hey, friends, and welcome to a very special episode of the Dance Principles United Podcast. Bec and I are here with the lovely Marie from Dancing With Marie. How are you, my love?

I am good. How are you guys?

So good. We've actually just had a bougie lunch together, which is really nice.

We've had a great day podcasting today.

Great day today.

I'm really thrown because Bec and I are sitting next to each other, and it's really fucking me up.

It is weird, isn't it? Like, we're literally. Anyway, we'll get used to that.

We'll get used to that. But we're excited. We've had a wonderful day with a few of our clients and friends having us doing some podcasting, having a lunch, and now we get to have the beautiful Miss Marie.

Oh, thanks.

Okay, guys, before we start, can I just talk about the massive storm that.

Happened when we left?

That was so crazy.

No, like, so hot. It was honestly like a cyclone in Penrith, which is where our podcast year is. I'm not kidding. Like, it was. There was hail. There was. I thought trees were gonna fall on.

Yeah, not gonna lie. I was scared.

Yeah, it was.

Anyway, we were in our cars, and all of a sudden we just basically stopped in the car park because it's just hailing us from the side. This is after I was in a tropical storm yesterday in Harvey Bay.

I thought it maybe was from that tropical storm. It's a long way away now.

It's really hot outside.

Yeah, I'm sunburnt from driving up.

Crazy, baby. I know. Tell me about it.

It's been one of those days. Anyway, not the point of our podcast.

It's a fun conversation.

Can I just butt in here? Can I just mention that these two are sitting here with vodka?

Let me just tell everybody that this.

Is behind the scenes.

Well, it's not anymore.

It's almost Christmas, guys.

It's almost Christmas. Look where we podcast. The guy that we do it with was, like, we were saying that we love vodka soda, and so today he bought us vodka sodas. I can't complain about that.

And Marie's being. Having a virgin one. Being a very good girl. Before she.

Yep.

Goes back and Maria's been doing 75 hard. And that is like.

Can we talk about that?

Yeah, let's talk about that.

With that.

Yeah.

You've been doing SGC 75 hard.

Yeah.

I wasn't even at retreat when you guys launched it.

Yeah, that's right.

But then I jumped on the bandwagon. I love it.

What day are you up to?

56 today.

Wow.

Day 56. And I, I am actually. I can't believe I've gotten this far. I don't commit to anything for myself.

So what have you been doing every day?

Yeah, so I get up at 5:30 every morning and I do my 45 minute workout. Whether that's on the treadmill or I'm doing abs, but that sort of stuff.

I love it.

Workout, whatever it is. And then I make sure I post on socials every day.

On your studio socials?

On studio socials. And the views have increased drastically. Really amazing. Yes. And then what else do I do? I have 15 minutes of me time every day. So that's either sitting on the couch, watching something, taking a nap.

Yeah, I love a good nap.

Or even just a face mask while I'm lying in bed at nighttime.

That's my. Just something nice.

Yeah. I always post in our accountability channel in SGC because I feel like if I am being accountable then I have to do it. And then Hour of power. That is my favorite hour of the day.

Yeah.

Revenue raising tasks for business. It's just, it's been so an hour.

Where you're not distracted by your phone. You're not like answering emails, ordering costumes. You're doing things that actually move the needle in your business.

Yeah. Whether that's ringing customers, trying to get them, upselling them for the next year, whether that's working out, what staff like in terms of their, what they're earning and how that's going to best suit the timetable and you know, all of that sort of stuff.

So, so proud of you.

Thank you.

It's actually like, yeah, your journey's been insane. Like that is just incredible to commit to that. I think you're the most committed out of everyone. Oh.

That there's a few people that are doing it.

You really are crushing it.

Yeah. You should be proud of yourself. The best part has been though, the exercise. Like whenever something goes wrong in the day or I've, I've struggled with something like I get a random message that's not great. I'm like, I gotta go for a walk. And I just walk it off.

Like it's like, yeah, are you feeling good? For the exercise.

Amazing.

You look amazing.

Yeah, you do. Yeah.

I feel so much stronger in myself too. Like, I can hold plank.

Wow.

A minute and a half.

That's amazing.

That's really good. That's really good.

I'd be so proud of that.

And I've started. Joined a boxing gym.

I love boxing.

Yeah, me too.

Boxing is so fun.

Yeah.

You know, at bft, where I'm at, this is so random. They. The boxing classes are closing down because everyone hates it. And I went to the second last boxing class last week, and there was two of us there.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, they just hate the boxing.

You need to get the aggression out somehow.

It's my favorite.

Yeah. I actually joined a gym called King here. That was just boxing, nothing else. Yeah. So good.

Well, we love hearing the transformation. So why don't we, like, rewind a little bit, go back to the start. You've had your studio for how many years?

23 years. This year. Whoa.

That's a lot.

You and I started nearly the same time.

Pretty much. I think so.

That's crazy.

Yeah, that's crazy. So you started like young teenager. Tell us about. Up until we met in about 2020, around Covid time. What was your studio like?

All over the shop. I was a business owner who had. Didn't really know what I was doing, wasn't making any money, wasn't paying myself a wage.

Had you ever paid yourself a wage?

No, never. Yeah.

And financially, you relied on your husband's wage?

Yeah, I relied on him to pay the mortgage. And we didn't have any kids or we did have kids, but. Yes, you know, they were. They were really young. It was just. Can I swear it was a shit show?

You can swear as much as you like. We're talking about a streaking podcast.

Pretty sure. Pretty sure Amanda said the F word already. Yeah, it was a.

It was a shit show. I didn't. I didn't have a lot of direction. I knew I wanted to be a dance teacher, and that's the thing, right? Yeah, I wanted to be a dance teacher, but now I've fallen in love with the business side of things. So much. Yeah.

So good. So it was kind of a hobby that took up a lot of time and didn't make you any money. Yep, that pretty much what it was. And I think so many of us have been there, right?

I was. Yeah, I was totally there.

Absolutely. And you're in school halls and things like that. Was that, like, stre. Like, is that easier because you don't have the pressure of, like, I've never done that. Is it easier because there's no rental problem pressure, or is it actually harder because you don't know where you're going to be?

Look, there's pros and cons to it. Like, you don't have to pay for the school holidays. You don't have to pay for holidays. When Covid hit, I wasn't hit with a massive lease. No, you know, invoice. So there were pros and cons, especially.

During COVID Like, that's such a nice place.

I was quite lucky in that sense. But also I was very restricted with what I could do and I couldn't do.

So you couldn't have the growth you wanted?

No. And I had to drive acromats in and out of the hall every week. And we could only have acro on one day because I didn't want to transfer mats backwards and forwards. And they'd say, you can only have it from 4 till 5:45 on a Monday. So there were lots of restrictions. And I think the turning point for me was when I turned up to the hall at the school the first day of 2023. Whatever. No, 2022. I had about 50 kids due to start that afternoon and probably lots of new students, lots of new students coming in for a trial. And I turned up, I walked into the hall and there was no floor. And they didn't tell me that the hall was unavailable. So I just was in massive disbelief. And I'm like, how can I run a business like this? I've got people. It was 3:30, they were coming in at 3:45, ready to start classes. Went over to the principal's office, knocked on the office and I said to him, I'm meant to start classes in 15 minutes. And he said, oh, I forgot to tell you, sorry, the hall's being renovated, can't use it. And I said, for how long? And he said, most of term one. I said, so what's the solution? Because I've got about 40 kids turning up in 15 minutes. And he said, oh, you can use the cola under the cola. Oh, no, still charge me for electricity for the lights. It was so hot on concrete. It was just horrendous. Yeah, it was horrendous. I went home and I cried to Louis and I said, I can't do this anymore.

Yeah.

And that's when we made the decision to find a studio space. But I'd been looking for a long time. Like, I know you guys might. That was my ultimate goal, was to find My own studio space, but that really forced me to do it.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's crazy. So tell me, you know you hit Covid, you're probably feeling. We talked about this on the other podcast when we missed you back. We absolutely missed you on our last podcast. And you hit Covid probably quite easy, that you didn't have a lot of bills to pay, so you didn't have that struggle, I guess. But you know, what was the moment where you're like, actually, I want to have a proper go at this. I actually want to build a business and I can do this. Like.

Yeah.

You know what made you feel like shit. I've either got to make a change in how I'm running.

So I'm a school teacher. Qualified school teacher as well.

Yeah. Didn't know that.

Yes.

So much about the friends today. I love that.

I went to uni and did a degree on scholarship. So I did my teaching degree and I. It just didn't give me the same reward standing in front of a class of 30 kids teaching school curriculum that dance did.

Yep.

And I'm not a quitter, so I'm someone that is. I've got this. I've still got this fire in my belly. Yeah. I'm not quite. I haven't quite done what I. What I want to do. And so I think when Covid hit, I was like, this is bloody hard. Yeah. But I'm not finished yet.

Yeah. And you've got to start making some money.

Yeah. And I like. I like the nice things in life as we do holidays. I live for holidays.

Yes.

And I'm like, if you like to.

Have a bougie, like, enjoy your things. I love that.

And I'm not ashamed to say that either because I work hard.

So.

Yeah. So I was like, okay, how are we going to do this? How are we going to make this happen? I want to, you know, I want all the things.

Yeah.

I want a nice car. I've got to start making some money.

Yes.

So I found you so lovely.

Yeah. How did that happen? Did you find Amanda first and then me? Is that how it went down?

I can't remember. So for me, it was middle of COVID I had three kids under 6 at home. I was losing my mind.

Yeah.

And then I saw a Facebook ad and Amanda was doing a three day training course.

Right.

Enrollment students, and I signed up. Okay.

So you worked privately with Amanda first. This was before we had dance principles united, because we started that in Covid. And then you found me and did staff training with Me?

Yeah. So I think I did maybe two years. Yeah. Coaching with you, Amanda.

Yeah.

Right.

Possibly before.

And then you said to me, we're transitioning over to Studio Growth Club. And then. Yeah, that's when I.

The rest is history.

Yeah. I love that.

So tell me about. So in five years since you were that moment where you were like, this is not working. How many students did you kind of have at the time in like 20. 20.

Oh, I think it was about 120 kids. Yes. I'd done pretty well out of a school hall.

Absolutely. That's huge for a school hall.

I did pretty well.

And you had a couple of halls, didn't you?

Yeah, so I had three halls running.

Y.

We would shuffle the kids across the road to the other class and then walk them back. And so it wasn't. It wasn't too bad. But yeah, I think I started with about 120. Okay.

And so Covid hit. Did you lose most of them in Covid?

Yeah, probably half of that.

Yeah.

I tried to get them on Zoom classes, which I wasn't fully on board with. Myself. Yes. Everybody else be on board.

Yeah.

And I made a vow to keep my teachers employed. So I kept all of them on and employed. So they did all the Zoom classes.

Yeah. But there was just no money left. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about five years on from that. Where are you now? How many students do you have?

So we're at 480 kids.

Nice. Whoa.

Chasing the 500 like that is the ultimate goal for us.

Yes.

We've got about 1500 class placements.

Nice.

At the moment. So our class average is probably just under three. It's 2.9. I didn't even know those numbers back. Yeah. Five years ago. Had no clue about that. And yeah, we're just.

And most importantly, you're in your own studio now. How long have you been there?

Three years now. Yeah. So this is the end of our third year.

And do you feel like that made it more real and more serious?

Yeah, it was a dream. I actually didn't even think about having my own studio space until shit hit the fan at our venues. I was very scared to sign the lease. Cause it's a lot of money. It is.

And it's a big commitment. Right. And it's a long period of time.

Massive. Yeah.

School holidays. You gotta find the rent during the school holidays. But we started doing holiday hangout and we started doing week long musical camp. And you find the way. And it's allowed me to grow so much.

I love that. Cause I feel like so many people, if they've been in like that school hall kind of style studio and you know, really kind of running their business like as a side business, I guess go, hey, I've been doing it this way for so long, I can't change. But you'd been doing that for what, 15, almost 20 years and then made a change and really decided at that point to go all in. Like that's brave. Don't you reckon, Beth?

Yeah, amazing.

I'm a bit of a risk taker too. So I don't sort of sit back and go, I don't think I can do this. Sometimes I take risks before I think about them and yeah, I jump in and then worry about the problems later. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But yeah, this has paid off.

So. Amazing.

Yeah, you can definitely do it.

Well, I wanted to chat to you about your staff training journey because I obviously have had a lot to do with that. So I wanted to start with. You employed me to come and do staff training. We're going to have a fun story here, guys. You employed me. Had you ever done staff training before that?

No.

Never ever? Not even nothing?

We had no. So we had a staff meeting that went for half an hour at the beginning of the year and I gave everybody their hall keys and I said, go for gold.

Yeah, right. That was interesting. And there's so many studio owners like that and I find that so strange because it was been such a big part of my studio but that we don't train our staff in this industry and we just go off you go into the.

We tell them rules about locking up the hall or whatever that is or mark a role, but not actually about what you want them to achieve in a classroom.

You've always had amazing stuff. Like I was so impressed with your staff from the get go and an amazing team. So I came in and did the staff training and then I came in and did it I think a second time. And then the third time I met with you and you said, I want to work on concert backstage. And I said to you, cool, what do you do backstage now? And you're like, just put everyone in a room and put some lists up on the walls and off we go, if we're lucky. Ye lists on the walls of the order of the concert. Look, there could have been, I don't know. And I was so shocked. I was so shocked. And I still think about that to this day. But there's so Many people that do that and don't have a backstage. I mean, I'm really crazy about it. Like I have every second of every person and what they should be doing and we definitely teach that. But has that been a game changer for you in concerts?

And like, I don't even have to turn up now to set up perfect. I should go and get my hair and makeup done.

Wow.

And I turn up at 8 o' clock and everything's done, right? Yeah. But like you said, I've got a great team. But I think it's just you empowering me to give them the guidance to say, I need you to do this. Can you work this out, you know, for me to be able to get to that point? Yes.

I loved when we did staff training. You started to really go above and beyond for your staff. And one of my favorite moments, and this is another amusing moment, I don't know if you know what I'm going to say is that you had this U shaped table and Marie goes above and beyond. So she had like a little book for everybody and she has chocolates that's, you know, got dancing with Marie. And you can talk more about how you go above and beyond in a second. Anyway, this particular time she had these balloons on every person's table. Like a little tiny balloon. Right. A helium balloon.

Cute.

And so to make it look pretty.

Because I want them to walk in and go, this is all pretty.

Right. And I was doing a session on fears. I don't even know why. I think I was just like, I always just start with everyone just kind of chatting about something just to get to know each other. And the girl, I don't know who she was. I think she was your acro teacher. She goes, I have a fear of balloons. She was literally full of feelings.

All that poor cold balloons.

Yeah. But she didn't say it until like an hour in. It was an hour in.

And was she shaking? She's like having a panic attack at the same time.

That was hilarious. But tell us how much you go above and beyond. I know you've made socks, drink bottles. Like you are such. You are probably the biggest rock star now in SGC above me, who was the staff trader of all time. I think you are the biggest rockstar with making your staff feel appreciated. Yeah.

Look, I think for me, I just want them to be there and I want them to because we do it on a Sunday. So I'm asking them to take time out of their Sunday. Like full disclosure. They get paid for everything.

Yes.

Of course they do, but I wanted them to want to come and spend time with each other. So, for example, like. And I do this. Most staff training, we have an affirmations chart. So everybody has an envelope stuck up on the mirror. And I say to them throughout the day, you have to write on everybody's chart and say one thing you love about that person. And so then at the end of the day, they get to go home with this piece of paper that's full of positive affirmations that makes them feel amazing.

That's amazing.

And the amount of times someone's messaged me to say, I'm sitting in my car crying, reading these affirmations. And I've done it myself because, you know, it's just. It just fulfills you. Like, it makes you feel really good.

Yeah.

The last staff training I did, I got some little cards, like, positive, similar affirmations, I would say. But I sat through the pack of 150 cards and I picked two cards for every staff member. It took me a while to do it, I bet, but I picked two that I thought really aligned with them, and I just stuck it on the inside of their little book that I gave them. And I said to them, I've just picked these little cards for you. These are how. This is what I think, how we work well together and all of that sort of stuff. And they all opened them and the whole room just went, aww.

It's the little touches. It's not actually about the money that you spend sometimes.

You know, it's just the little things that make them feel really, you know, part of the group.

And.

Yeah, so I really love doing it. Makes me feel good, too, doing all that stuff.

Amazing. And I remember that moment with you when you tried to book me again for staff training, and I said to you, no, no, you're fine now. You don't.

I'm not coming.

Yeah, I'm not coming. I'm happy to sit down with your slides and help you, but you don't need my support anymore. You've become the leader you need to be, so you be the leader. How was that first staff training for you?

Oh, look, at the end of the day, it was amazing. But I think as a leader, sometimes we really doubt ourselves and we really just think, oh, I can't do this. They're not going to listen to what I have to say. It's easier for someone else to come in and say, be the big bad wolf. And I think I messaged you at the end of the day and I said, I put my big girl undies on today, and I did it, and it was amazing. And I felt really empowered. So that was thanks to your guidance and pushing me just to step outside my comfort zone.

I think you always had it in you, though. I think you were just scared to push forward with it. And if you're listening now and you're petrified of doing staff training, you just have to make those first steps to do it. I mean, we're lucky in SGC that I do that online with our people to start with, just to give them an idea of the guidance of it. But I feel like, you know, you can do it.

We're all teachers to start with. Right. And I think we just get so inside our heads that I know how to teach this for kids, but how do I do it for adults? Like, and they're my peers. They're not my stuff. Like, you know, there's that whole conversation.

And I think if you got stuff who are older than you as well, I think that's a real challenge. Like, you know, we've got some older.

Ballet teachers who are always the hardest.

They're hard. Like, I love them to death, but they're really set in their ways. And I sort of stand in front of them and think, are they gonna think what I'm saying is ridiculous?

Yes.

Like, you know, because I'm not teaching them how to teach. We're talking about so many other things.

Yeah.

So I think that was where I really struggled as well.

I always, with people like that, empower them. So I will be like, you know, Ms. Marie, what. You know all about this? Like, what would your answer be? So just try and empower them as if they're also a leader in their. I think that's the only way to make them feel because actually they're probably very self conscious, being in a room of younger teachers, and they probably think, you know, this is.

And often I say, you know more about ballet than. Than I do. So can you share your experiences and knowledge? So I think that that gets them on board as well.

Amazing. Hey, can you tell us about what your staff training looks like now? How often do you do it? How long does for that kind of thing?

Yeah, so we used to do a full day. We used to do six hours. Now we do it probably three times a year. We have one at the beginning of the year, so we'll have one in January. We have one before mid year, and then we have one before the end of year concert. Okay, so that's coming up soon, on Sunday.

How exciting. So what, this is going to go out after this? But tell us, what do you have planned for your stuff? We won't ruin any surprises. What are you going to go through, like the week before concert?

Yeah, so we actually are going to our concert venue. We've got a new venue. This is this year. So we're doing all that through.

Yeah, that's.

Yeah, we're having our training at the venue, so normally we have it at the studio. And what, you've hired it, I've hired the space. And, you know, I think that that's important to spend the money on things like that so we can have a walk through. We can see what the venue's going to be like where we set everything up. So that'll be the first sort of half an hour of our staff training. It's only going to go for three hours this time.

Yep.

Cutting it short. Sundays and my weekends are so important to me with the kids. So we try and.

Can I say something else with that, though? I think when. And I feel the same now, when you consistently do staff training, you don't need as much time with them because they're your people that you've had there for forever anyway. And when you. Yeah, I feel the same. Like if I have a team, I.

Think sometimes it's more valuable to have shorter sessions more regularly. Right?

Yes. But when I have a team that's like that, that you've had for the last year, a year and a half, two years, they're already so trained.

Absolutely.

And on that, I. Even though we do staff training regularly and everybody's heard it before, I always, without fail, talk about our studio values and I always talk about their responsibilities as staff members.

100%.

Like, that's. That's just something that.

Yeah.

Do you worry that they're getting bored of that?

Yes, all the time. And.

But do they always still seem to receive it really well? Like, is that just an internal thing that you worry about?

Yeah.

So I said to them last time, I said, oh, next staff training, we're doing the Critical paths. And I even put up a slide that said critical path. Boring. And they looked at it and they were like, we love critical paths because it gives us direction on concert day.

Absolutely.

We know what we're doing.

We're setting them up.

Standing around.

Yeah, absolutely. Tell us about that because I find that really interesting. Do you Bec.

She loves Critical paths?

No, after your story about critical past before. But that her. So her staff are actually doing it themselves, like how great is that?

Yeah, that's a cool idea.

I'd love to hear about it.

I probably should because I do the critical paths still. And Marie over lunch was like, you need to let go of that and.

Let your staff do it.

But I guess, like, for me it would be hard for them to know all the different. I don't know, I feel like my staff are coming from this once a week person that comes in and teaches hip hop and this person. And whereas your staff tend to be more there all the time, I feel.

I have once a weekers. Yeah, I have some that are.

And are they gonna do their own critical paths?

Absolutely.

Okay, that's interesting.

Yeah. So tell us how you structure it.

I just don't have the capacity or the brain power to write 20 critical paths. And I think if my lang. I was saying before at lunch, my language is very different to their language. So if I've written something on their critical path, they could look at it and go, I don't know, especially in.

A rush, you know, in the dark, like all that kind of stuff.

And so then they're coming to me saying, what does this actually mean? Whereas if they've written it themselves, they understand it. On staff training day, I allocate probably 45 minutes, half an hour, sometimes two critical paths. And I give them the template. I give them the concert program and I give them the supervision groups. So they all know what group they're looking after. And I say to them, guys, these kids are in these routines. You need to work out what you've got to do at different points of the day.

So it's not the whole day. It's more just like the quick changes. It's the whole day. But you probably give them a bit of structure around that in the morning, like, who's setting up, who's doing what? Yeah.

So I'll sort of say we're in a U shaped situation sitting down. And I'll say to them, okay, at 8:15 we've got staff briefing. So they all put down 8:15 staffing.

Yeah.

They all write it.

Yeah. You know, if there's anything else important as a group that we need to do.

So you're like, okay, I need someone to be unpacking the truck and somebody else to be setting up, who's volunteering. And then you decide that, well, we allocate jobs. Okay.

So Renee and I spend a lot of time allocating jobs to people. I'm very conscious.

And so you tell them what their job is and they write the path for that.

So you're clocking on at 6 o' clock and you're unpacking the truck.

Yeah.

You're clocking on at 8 o' clock and you are standing at the door greeting families that walk through the door. If they've clocked on at 6, they don't pack up, they get to go home.

So you do tell them that part of it. They just write it themselves.

Yeah. So I think for those listening out there, Marie doesn't just give everybody a list of the concert and then sit down and make your own critical path. Because I feel like a lot of people will be like, cool, I'm just gonna sit down with all my stuff. And they can. You've done the work before. She's done beforehand to do that. And then I assume. Well, I don't know if you have this, but I would have timings of each routine. So they know how long they've got to get changed. Because that, for me, like, I want my people to know. OK, okay. Six and under jazz. These kids have 12 minutes to get into six and under hip hop. Like that, for me, is important for them to know that time frame. Yeah.

So I don't give them those specifics. They actually work that out for themselves. So they know that routines are two and a half minutes at the concert, and they know that six and under jazz are number one. And then their ballet routine might be number 12. So they've got 11 routines, 10 routines, I say. Because by the 11th routine they need to be backstage. So. And then they just write that in their critical path. But they even go. We're at a point now where they go into a lot of detail and they put the child's name. So Amelia is in routines one, six and seven. They know that Amelia's gotta be ready.

Yep.

If she's in 6 and 7, she's getting changed side stage.

And we have to take costumes side stage, get a change stage. Right. Like, whatever that is.

But now we've done that so many times, like you were saying before, they know what they've gotta do.

Yes, of course.

So it gets easier.

I love that.

It's clever. So good.

And what other things are you doing on your staff training?

What are we doing on our staff training? We talk about what concerts should feel like. That's an SGC thing that we've discussed. What should it feel like? It should be a party. Yeah. And this is one big thing that I was really scared to talk to my staff about. But concert day is not about them. It's about the kids.

100%.

And so we don't thank. We thank our teachers, but it's not a big. Let's clap for Ms. Caitlin.

Yes. Here's her.

Clap, clap, clap. We don't do that anymore. I take them out for Christmas dinner.

Absolutely.

And I reward them in other ways. You know, I put on an awesome staff training. I cater it for them. There's always so much food at staff training for them. I reward them in other ways. But concert day is about the kids. It's about making the parents feel welcome. So we talk about what it should feel like. Yeah, there's lots of things that we talk about, but it only goes for three hours. Oh, this concert training. We actually. We do staff awards.

Oh, cute.

So everyone votes on staff awards. We have five. I think we've got the human confetti this year. So the person that walks around, like, so happy. We've got the voice of an angel, but the volume of a megaphone teacher. So the person that you can hear from anywhere in the studio, that would be me.

Shocking news.

It's funny because the teachers vote for each other. So, like, that one. There's like, the one person's got seven votes. Yes.

I love it.

And then we present those awards at staff training. So there's a bit of fun in there as well.

Oh, I love it. I love it. So amazing.

I also pick a team spirit award. So at the end of every year, there's one teacher that gets awarded the spirit award. So it's the person that, you know, covers the values of the studio really well, is invested, you know, all of that sort of stuff.

That's incredible.

Yeah, incredible. It's fun.

It's fun.

There are so many amazing things that you do, and I think, you know, we've been so proud to see that journey. Right, Beck? Like, it's been crazy from. You are such a confident leader now. And I'm sure your staff would all say this too, but, like, you've had a big transformation.

Yeah.

It's been crazy to watch.

So amazing. We're so proud of you. Thank you.

But I wouldn't have, like, honestly, I wouldn't have had that without your guidance either. No, I'm serious, because. And people that are, you know, I feel very lucky to be part of a group like this because I think I'd still be on that roller coaster six years ago of. Well, I probably wouldn't be running my studio, to be honest. I would have thrown in the towel.

Yeah.

And here you are, crushing goals. Well, we're so proud of you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's been amazing.

So much fun.

Yeah, I'm sure everyone's found heaps of value, so thanks, friends, and we will see you next week. Thanks, Marie. Bye. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dance Principles United Podcast. If you'd love to learn more from us, we have a special offer just for our podcast listeners. Go to the link in the show notes right now to get two weeks free in Dance Principles United Tribe. We would love to see you there.