How Bec Took 4 Weeks Off & Came Back to a Thriving Studio

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 another episode of the Dance Principles United podc. Hello, lovely Beck. How are you, my love?

I am super amazing. I feel like I've just, like, gotten back and hit the ground running, you know, it's comp season. It's the craziness of all the things. I wouldn't have it any other way, though, would I, Amanda?

Absolutely. And that's what we're going to talk about today, is about taking some time off. But tell me what else has been going on with you.

Well, I wanted to give a shout out to brilliant Rihanna from Sparks because we met her at Expo.

First time we met her.

Yes. And she didn't have her own studio then, but it was something she always wanted and I told her to just go for it and she. In. Well, how many months is it since Expo?

Probably six. Is that. Yeah, five or six. Yeah.

Even she has built out her own premises, put her brand together. Opened term three, which is hard to open term three. I think people would think that's not possible. In three weeks, has gained 92 students.

Wow.

In 240 class placements. She is one of the smartest people I think I've ever come across. Like, just wow. So, you know, I've been mentoring her and helping her through and she just takes on every bit of advice. She just runs with it. She's just so. She's going to be such a huge success.

Ah, congrats to you, Brianna. Shout out to you. That is so proud of her. What a nice story. Yes. Thanks for sharing that.

Watch this space. She's going to be one of those amazing studio owners.

We'll have to have her on the podcast.

I'd love to.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, today we're talking about how you managed to take four weeks off your studio. And when we say four weeks off, you meant four weeks off. You were in Europe, you were living your best life, having a great time. Is this something like you've always done or is it a bit of a look? I know the answer to this, but, like, as I'm saying this, I know my control freak friend Beck is answer, but like, so many of us would be like, oh, my God, I can't. You know, we've had People say, oh, they can't come to Expo because, you know, grade two is on. I've got my Saturday grade two ballet class. I can't miss it even for a week. Like, so some people hearing that you took four weeks away would go, holy shit. Scary. Yes.

No, I definitely would never, ever have done it back in the day and I didn't have the right things in place to be able to do it either. So I think that's a huge, huge part of it. But yeah, definitely would never, ever, ever have done that.

Yeah, it's such a hard thing because I think we always all like carry that guilt around with us. Or is it that we're a bit of like martyr syndrome or something? Is that what do you think it is with studio owners?

All of the above, for sure. And I think we prioritize things way too heavily. That is within the business when you don't realize that by stepping. I mean, the last podcast we just did was my learnings from going away. Yes. And I remember you saying in that podcast, Amanda, that you feel that when you're away, that's when you get your best business ideas. And if you don't allow yourself that time and you don't allow yourself to go to something like Expo, you, you're really doing your business a disservice at the end of the day. Absolutely. So it's changing your mindset on that as well. I think that is a huge thing.

Or the holiday. I actually think, you know, it doesn't always have to be a dance related thing, it's the holiday. Because, you know, I'm a big believer that as a leader, we have to be able to give to not just our students, but our staff and our team as well. And if we're burnt out and we're resentful of, you know, seeing all of our staff having European summers while we're slaving, which I know there's some studio owners at the moment doing that know, and we're resentful of that. We can't be a good leader and we can't come up with the new ideas and all of those things and be inspired. Like, we've got to make sure we make time for ourself and prioritize ourself as well, not just be so in the weeds in the nine to five. Well, nine to nine sometimes being a studio owner.

Right, Absolutely. And I think I'm gonna say, like, when your studio feels chaotic and crazy and out of control, you feel like you can't step out of it. Whereas when you and I know, I was like that for a very, very long time.

Absolutely.

But when you feel and do the steps and make the choices to make your studio in control, that's when you feel like, I can go.

Yeah.

And it takes work to do that.

Absolutely.

And I know I mentioned Bri at the beginning, but that's one of the things that she's doing from the get go. She's like, I want to put the right systems and planning and things in now. From the get go. I wish I'd done that. Yes. I'm sure you wish you'd done that from the get go. Like, you know, and she's so smart with getting coaching immediately to help her with that. But those systems are so important, Amanda.

Absolutely.

If you can have the systems there so that things run smoothly, it's much easier to step away. Right.

Absolutely. Hey, I would love to know this of any of our podcast listeners, but which studio owners got married in school holidays? Absolutely. Yeah. Because. And I would guarantee that there's so many studio owners.

Right.

That, like, planned big life events.

Yes.

Around their studio so they didn't have to take time off. Like, isn't that just crazy? Because, you know, like, I. I remember, like, I had. There was a comp on, and so I didn't want to get married on that weekend in case I missed the computer. Like, those kids. Like, that was. I don't know how long I've been married for 15 years.

How long?

Something along those lines. I'm looking to Nathan, the corner of the. But, you know, those kids aren't with me anymore. They don't remember that comp. Whether we'd done that comp or not done that. They're not gonna. They don't remember that. Like, why did I think at the time it was such a big deal. Like. And I think that still carries over. Right.

Have you ever not gone to a computer?

I. I want to say maybe one. I went. I. Right at the end.

Right.

Right at the very end. And that's probably about it. I think I went for. Only I left early once with a newborn, and I went in, just dropped in. I said I wasn't going to be there, but I went for a little bit with Sass when she was really little. Right. What about you?

I did. And actually when I started doing business coaching and the retreat landed on a comp, I learned by then how valuable it was.

Yes.

And so I just put a senior person in charge of the comp and trained them.

Was it fine?

It was fine. They did so well, the kids. I had a great time. I missed a comp last year because.

Oh, we had retreat.

Did we have retreat?

There was something. We had our SJC retreat. And your kids were at a computer.

Yep.

Yep.

So same thing. Like, I just think sometimes and they're fine, you know, they're totally fine. You don't have to go to.

I guarantee those kids. Like, that was only last year. The kids probably don't even remember. No, they wouldn't even remember. It wasn't the end of the world. Isn't that crazy?

Crazy.

And I think we all get a little bit in our heads about, hey, we have to be doing all the things we are, the ones that have to be at every event. The parents gonna hate me if I don't teach my grade two ballet class one week. And I've got to go even when I'm sick or when my child's sick and I've got to miss my friend's wedding, and I can't go to that. You know, we've all had those stories, but I think if you put the systems in place, then that can really change that. So tell me, what kind of things did you put in? Well, how about we start with this? What did you miss while you're away in four weeks? Because it was school holidays a little bit. But you missed a lot of things, right?

I missed our Circus Acro concerts. Yeah. We had three concerts the Saturday that I left. Well, we left on the Monday and it was on the Saturday, so I did not go to the. That is the first time I've missed a concert.

Ooh. Yep.

But that went really well. You know, they had all their critical paths done before it.

You'd approve them all, I'm sure. And had meetings with them. Yep.

Yep. They were so on it. And it ran smoothly. And it was fine without me.

Absolutely.

It allowed my beautiful studio manager, Justin, to step up and get out on the microphone for the first time.

He'd be great at that. Was he nervous?

I think he was really nervous about it. But he was, I think, really proud of himself that he got up and achieved that, because that was probably something that would have been outside of his comfort zone, I think. So, like, it does allow your staff to step up when you don't go to those sorts of things. We had first week, we had two open weeks, so we had open week the last week after our pep rally. I wasn't there for that.

Yep.

And then we had open week the.

First week back and, like, hunt hundreds of trials Right. We're talking hundreds. Hundreds, yeah, hundreds of trials. You also ran, even though we said it was school holidays, you run preschool through, so classes were still on.

Correct. Preschool. We did workshops as well. I think we had a couple of birthday parties in there.

Like, who knows? There was a lot on in four weeks in the studio.

Yeah, there's always a lot on for us in school holidays, but it was fine.

Absolutely.

Ran without me.

Absolutely. So if you're thinking how the do I do that and where do I start, what kind of things did you put in place to make that actually happen?

Well, I think, first of all, and it sounds so obvious, but making sure you've got reliable teachers who are going to cover your classes because you don't want people to opt out of that.

Yeah. And probably people that you trust and know, not just a random teacher that has never worked for you before or whatever.

Correct. So really making sure that that's all covered is very important. Allowing your staff to make the decisions on their own. You know what I mean? Like, allowing them. And I know you had things like this in place where you'd say, contact me for this, but not this, this or this.

Yes.

I didn't really want my staff to contact me for anything. You know, I had a studio manager and I trusted him to take the responsibility to do that. And I know Nathan was chatting to Justin over this time and Justin said to Nathan, oh, things that we normally, you know, ask Beck about, we just made the decision and went with it and it was fine. So it actually gave them that authority as well.

And it helps them grow. Right. As well, because they don't have you to rely on or, you know, that, you know, that crutch, I guess, because sometimes it is just a bit of a, hey, I just want to run this by someone. Even though I know the right answer, I just want to talk it through. We all do that. It's just a natural thing.

Absolutely. Obviously, you know, making sure that they have lots of systems and things in place, which we've done for quite a few years now, so we know that all of those systems are there for them. I think if you're just going to leave them in that chaotic studio that I used to run, then that would.

When they didn't know what trial was coming in, how, like, what they had to do if someone, you know, needed to buy a uniform or like all of those things, they're trained in all of that.

And I think that's the key. Like, you need to make sure that they understand and know what you want and then just letting go of the control. Because you do want to control every little situation in there. And so you've got to let go of that, I think.

Yeah. Because I'm a control freak and, you know, not me. And it's hard to let go. But, yeah, you need to have that trust, and it's good for everybody. Can we talk about staff training in terms of that? Because, you know, I know that, you know, that just didn't magically happen. It's that you are consistently training your stuff. You didn't just go all the way. Before we go, oh, I've got to do this huge, big staff training because I need to learn every single thing about how to run the business for four weeks. It had been happening for a long period. Right. Yes.

But I did have a moment where that.

Yep.

Started, you know, and there was years where I didn't train my stuff at all in anything and just dropped them into things and expected them to fly with it.

Yes.

And so, yes, I think when I started doing the staff trainings and talking through all of that, it is a huge difference in your business. So if you haven't done it before, it's never too late. You can start it immediately.

Yeah.

But, yes, just. And I think you learn as you go with that stuff as well, you know, and you let go of something and then you're like, oh, I didn't teach them that well, or, yeah, I messed that up, or that didn't work, or. And then you've got to go back and change it. That's okay.

And it's that thing. Right? Like, we're talking dance. We're not talking brain surgery. It's not life or death. You know, what if someone doesn't have the right costume? Life goes on like, it's crazy. Right. Or whatever that is. Like, there's always ways to fix things afterwards. I think when we're talking about staff training, your staff knowing the why is so important.

Yes.

And I think that helps them then make the correct decision. Because you can't sit there and go, if X happens, do Y if. You know, like, for every single possible scenario. But if they understand the why of your business, then they can really do that. And I'm a big believer in that. You know, when you're training for, like, concert, for example, you know, your why is you want every child to have a great experience, you know, well, that was for me anyway. And you want them all to have fun and everyone to leave happy and having a great time. Now, that helps make decisions about or what do we do if the child forgets their shoe? Or what do we do if that child's makeup isn't done properly? Or all of those things because you go, okay, so what are we doing this for? We want the kid to have fun and leave happy. So then we make the decision based on that. And so I think if your staff are really well trained on your why that helps. Right.

I love that so much and I think it's so important for us. I was talking about this in the staff training that I just did for all of our SJC members and their teams is you just have to think about like not is this decision ego driven or is this decision fans first driven? Because quite often I think we make ego driven decisions like, oh, their makeup's not right. Oh, I can't believe that they, you know, their hair isn't done properly or.

They'Re wearing ballet stockings for Jazz or like so it's stupid. Yeah, like who cares?

Like just like, I mean, I'm not saying who cares, I'm just saying like you can't blame people for not knowing what we know.

Yes.

And I think, we think cause we grew up in dance that everyone should know everything about dance and that, you know, how could they not know the answer to that? And I've sent a million emails. How do they not know about that? And it's just like because they're human and absolutely they don't get it. You know, it's not their whole world.

Yes.

Like it is ours. So yeah, I think the why is important and I think they're looking at things from a parent perspective is always so, so important. And I say it to my team all the time. Like just try and look at it from the parent perspective.

Absolutely.

This is totally off topic, but even this morning my team sent me an email about the fact that we don't want parents watching classes. And they'd written it quite aggressively in the sense of saying, you know, it's child protection and blah, blah, blah. And I said, no, we don't need to say that. Just say, why can't my child watch classes? Well, it's going to be distracting in there for parents to be in there. And if one parent's in there, they want all the parents in there. And you know, we've got 22 kids in that class, so that's going to be an absolute craziness.

Absolutely.

Also just letting you know that you can watch the kids on the TV anytime and check in on them, that's a Much nicer way of.

Yes.

And a much more fans first way of saying it.

Yes. And explaining to them the why not. Just like throwing jargon and words at them. Right.

Yes. But see, even this morning, I'm still coaching my staff every day on what I want and how I want things to sound. And, you know, that stuff is really important. Like, you've got to continually coach them on that. And, you know, there's so many times that we talk to studio owners, Amanda, and they're like, I'm so cranky with my admin and I can't believe even they've done this, this, this, this, this, you know, and. Okay, have you spoken to them about it? Like, why don't you just pull them up straight away the second they do it? Just like I did with the team this morning. I didn't. I didn't get cranky with them. I just said, let's try and put this in a different way. Here's my ideas.

Yeah.

Like, just coach them as you go.

Absolutely.

And then you don't have the big.

Drama at the end.

The big, like, now I need to fire this person because they've done everything wrong. But you haven't actually coached them along the way. So is that their fault or your faul.

Absolutely. And I think that comes down to, like, the communicating your wants. And, you know, you mentioned before, when I used to go away, I was really clear with my staff about things to contact me with and things not to contact me whether I was away or whether I was having a day off, had gone home early or whatever that was. And it's that thing that people can't read minds. Like, I can't expect them to know what I want because otherwise, do they call me all the time and annoy me or do they not call me and I go, oh, my God, I can't believe you didn't tell me about that. While I was like, you need to communicate. So I had a very clear list. I want to know if this happens, this happens. If the, if the ambulances called, you know, I want to know these things. I don't want to know if, you know, a mum complains about, you know, concert. I don't care. Like, not I don't care, but, like, deal with it. Yes, do your best. Deal with it. Let's talk about it when we get home. Not, I don't care. But not while I'm on holidays. I'm allowed to have a break as well.

Yes. And I still wanted to know my numbers, especially because open week was Happening.

Yes.

And I still wanted them to check in each day with that. Well, one, because I'm obsessed with the numbers as you know, but two, because I knew that would continue to push them. So I was happy for them to inbox me about that because I wanted to know what was going on with that. But like you said, I didn't want to know about the parent complaining about.

You know, their costume or whatever that is. Yeah. And it's just a matter of. Yeah. Teaching your staff and communicating that. The other thing we used to do, and I don't know how that works in your studio. I think a lot of studio owners forget that, you know, especially if you only have part time staff or anything like that and you go away, you need to make sure that they have access to money. I feel like, like it just sounds like such a silly thing but I've done that before as well and gone, oh shit. You know, they need some sort of access. So we used to have what we called a fix it fund.

Yep.

My staff could spend a hundred dollars without asking me to do whatever they needed to do. Up to a hundred dollars. So you know, if they needed to go and buy toilet paper, like that was fine. There was money there for them to go buy toilet. They didn't have to call me and go, oh, do you mind? And I'll pay for it. And then can you add it like, you know, whatever it was. But also the same as that, they could spend $100 on a client meaning if they needed to give that person a free pair of stockings to keep them happy because there's ripped. They didn't have to ask me, you know, or if they'd opened a brand new pair of stockings and they were damaged or you know, whatever. And they didn't have to check all those things. They could make decisions up to $100 that they felt were best for the clients, best for the business without checking. And you know, obviously there's more money to be spent if you're away on four weeks, but you know, just that kind of thing. I feel like sometimes that's just such a silly thing that's overlooked.

Yes. I love that. I love that so much. And I think, you know, we've seen lots of our SGC members now, Amanda, have a baby and wanting to have. So when I had bb. Okay. I'm not kidding. I think she was three days old and I went back to the studio teaching. Three days.

Crazy.

Crazy.

Yeah.

Right. I did not have any time off because I couldn't, I couldn't have had time off.

There was no one to do anything. Yeah.

Well, and it was that manic studio that I was talking about. So I was back in there straight away. But we've seen so many of our Studio Growth Club members be able to.

Have really good term of. Yeah. Which is more even.

But that's because we help them with Studio Growth Club to put those systems in place to train their staff to, you know, that's what you want. You want that business that can run without you. I mean, if you go to the local McDonald's, I guarantee the person that owns it is not working in that business. Or, you know, most businesses are like that when you think about it. Like the KFC owner. I'm sure the KFC chain owner is not the one there working in KFC flipping burgers.

Yes.

So, you know, it is possible to do that. But as we know with places like that as well, every policy, procedure, every. There's a staff member is so trained, there's systems, there's. Everything's in place there for them.

So, so important. And so I think that, you know, especially for those people who want to have time off, are planning to have a baby, you know, at some point, you know, or just want to go on a nice big long holiday, it's so important to start that training. And it's an interesting, you know, you said that we've had so many Studio Growth Club baby people that have had babies. Yeah. And some of them, you know, sort of spoke to us about it two or three years before they were having a baby going, hey, I want to have a baby at some point in the future. Let's start working towards this now. How can we start getting our team ready? And like, it's so smart to be thinking about that because I guarantee you I did not think about that before I had my first one. You know, you asked, you know, you, you asked me about missing a concert. I did. As you're saying that I missed the rehearsal day. So I was in hospital still with Ali. They wouldn't let me out of hospital.

How dare you.

But I managed to go to the concert with like, you know, the eight day old or the nine day old or whatever. Something stupid. Yeah. As you do.

As you do.

Any other great tips for leaving your studio?

Let it go. I know I say it all the time, but I just think if your staff make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. And I feel like sometimes we have to let our staff make mistakes. Mistakes.

Absolutely. So they learn.

Yes. And they're not going to learn any other way and it'll be okay.

It's just dance.

Yeah, it's just dance. Yeah. It does allow them to step up. So, you know, you've got it. I left and I let it go and I just thought, no, I'm actually going to have time away from that and just enjoy my time.

Absolutely. And come back inspired and refreshed and all of those things.

And then hit the ground running.

Hit the ground running. Absolutely. Which is always the story. Anyway, we hope you loved this podcast. If you are taking time off from your business and need some help putting some systems in place, give us a message, drop us a dm, find us online, do where all the things to find us because we would love to help you.

Absolutely. Thanks guys. Have a great week.

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 Principals United Tribe. We would love to see you there.