Is Your Timetable Costing Your Dance Studio Thousands?

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.

Oh, hello friends, it's Bec here from the Dance Principles I am here with the incredible Amanda doing some podcasting today.

How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. Like, it is that crazy time of the year, right? Yeah, it— we're feeling it at the moment, you know. I know a lot of our members are feeling it. There's so much to do, from concert— we've got Fiji planning going on in there, uh, you know, all the things. But also, we're all trying to think about 2027.

Yes.

Nuts, right? It comes up so quickly. How is it this time of the year already? There

is so much happening. There's timetabling, there's price lists, there's 5,000 concerts coming up for me. Gosh. End of comp season, trying to get children ready for Nationals. Like, there's so much happening.

So many things. And I know all of our studio owners are feeling that. They're probably living on caffeine and

Red Bull. Red Bull? Sugar-free Red Bull.

Red Bull and good vibes at the moment. Is that your— maybe less so the good vibes.

Yeah, I was gonna say.

Just the Red Bull and the chaos.

Just the Red Bull and the chaos.

Living on Red Bull and chaos, that's gonna be our new tagline, which I know so many studio owners are feeling. So we wanted to have a bit of a chat about timetabling because so many people kind of— me, I always thought about it in the October holidays. Some people might not quite be there yet, but maybe it's just something to start percolating.

It is such a big thing, isn't it? The first thing I wanna talk about is deciding whether you want the staff you've got next year or not.

Crazy.

That is the— that for me, and I said this to, I think, our tribe members the other day when someone was asking about this, but I'm like, we all have one or two teachers that we, Can't stand that we know it's true.

Yep. Okay.

But it's true.

Yeah. No, it is.

They've been a pain in our ass.

They've been a pain in our ass.

Absolutely. It happens every day.

That you're like, oh, for fuck's sake, Miss So-and-so did that again. Like we all have that like replaying in our head, but we can't be bothered to do anything about it.

Well, or not brave enough. And so, and so then you've got to weigh up. Well, the kids love them, but they're actually a pain in my ass. Like there's that whole situation.

Or their choreography is good.

Yeah. And then, but it is now the time to go, what do I want my year to look like next year? Because you can change it up. You can. And as Abby says, everyone's replaceable.

Thank you, Miss Abby. You just wanna be Miss Abby, don't you?

I love dance moms so hard. I don't think you understand.

I cannot. The anxiety it gives me, I just cannot. I cannot watch that show.

There would not be a week where I don't watch it at least 2 or 3 times. I just, I love it. It's actually an embarrassing addiction. Like, it really is. Anyway.

I would love to know if anybody else loves Dance Moms or it stresses them out. I feel like it gives me like PTSD.

But see, I don't care about the mom part of it. I just love watching the dancers and their technique and that's the part.

Yeah, okay.

I don't care about the mums beefing with each other. Like, I, I have been known to fast forward the entire episode and just go to the end where they do the dancing part, 'cause that's the part I love.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I enjoy the dances. It's the drama. I actually don't like reality TV just because I don't like the drama. Like, I feel like it's like that secondhand embarrassment. Do you feel like that?

No, I'm the opposite. Okay, Below Deck has just brought out the new Australian season and I am so addicted to it. Like, so addicted. I love reality TV.

Oh yeah, no, second, I just get that, yeah, like I feel like I am embarrassed for them and I can't deal with it when something happens and I'm like, it gives me anxiety.

Actually, I can honestly say that Tim and I pretty much only watch reality TV.

Really?

We even watch that alone where people are in the forest.

Oh, Nathan loves that. I can't do that either. That, that, like talking about things that give me anxiety, I'm like, this person's gonna die. I can't. I like Traitors. I can do that. Have you seen Traitors?

I don't know what that is.

It's really good. There's a really cool lady, Claudia someone, who dresses as a goth and like, yeah, it's very good. The only show I do like—

That's not reality TV though.

No, it's more like a game show, I would say. You're not counted in there, that's

reality

TV. You know what I do like? Sorry, this is not the episode that we're meant to be filming. I really enjoy, Like New York real estate shows.

Oh yeah, I love that.

I love Ryan Serhant shows.

Oh, any American real estate.

Million Dollar Listing. Oh my God. I like the Australian ones too, to be honest.

I can't get enough of that.

I like watching the pretty houses and going, holy crap, my family's in real estate. So I'm always like, oh my God, we should watch it. No one else wants to watch it with me, but—

How did we get on the reality TV?

I'm not sure.

We're talking about

times. Today's episode, let's start again, is definitely on timetables and we have been distracted. You're talking about Abbey Lee. We got distracted. Okay, timetables, decides—

Replacing teachers.

Replacing teachers. Sorry, friends, we're back. Here we are with regular programming.

Oh gosh. So I think it is a good time to reflect and say, we are not having that teacher anymore. I'm not putting up with that. Also asking your teachers now, you know, that's been our thing the last 2 weeks. One, are you coming back?

Yep.

Because some of my teachers might want to go on contract next year. I've got one in particular who wants to go on contract next year. Yeah. So that's a very important question to know. 2, what days do you want to work for me? Do you want to work the same days? Do you not want to work the same days? So, and 3, sometimes I think it's just good to say, especially to your younger teachers, is there an opportunity that you'd like to be given?

Yeah. Is there something that you're dying to do? Yeah, look, I think that's all really great, but also on the flip side of that, I heard you have a conversation about making the timetable not around the teachers and not being too— so whilst you need to have that conversation and keep it in your mind, you also don't wanna be too hyper-focused on making the timetable perfect for them because that teacher can only work Tuesday or whatever it is.

And that is the worst thing you can do.

Yeah.

Absolutely. Yes, the biggest— well, you did this game changer for me because what was it, 5 or 6 years ago I was doing the timetable and you said to me, why don't you just take teachers out of the equation completely, which God forbid, and just do the timetable for the parents and the kids so the kids can get the most amount of classes and the parents are there the least amount of days. Mm-hmm. And so did that. didn't think about a teacher, then brought teachers in, then went, well, that teacher, that doesn't work, so I'm not even employing that teacher anymore.

Yep.

Biggest game changer of my whole life.

So good.

So good.

I love that. So there's so many factors, and obviously the teacher thing does come into play because, you know, I was really lucky in my studio. I, I didn't bring teachers in to play as much because I was like, you know what, every teacher needs to teach everything. Basically, I very rarely employed a teacher that couldn't teach multi-styles. Um, you know, obviously there's a few exceptions to that, but generally I'm like, you don't just get to choose that you just want the comp teams. There was none of that. It was like, no, no, even if you're a high— my top RAD teacher still has to teach a random kindergarten lyrical class or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I was like, if that's how it flows in the night, then that's what you have to do.

Okay.

I know not everyone has that luxury and that's not the reality in some people's things, but I think it is just that You know, balancing both sides, I guess.

So we've been talking to our members about the timings of timetable.

Yes.

And I wanted to talk about the hour class versus 45-minute class.

Yeah.

So I changed up 3 years ago, I think, from hour classes to 45-minute, and it took Nath a long time to talk me into this, and it was the biggest game changer and still is. And I always get questions on Tribe and SGC about how I make it work and still get such a high level out of the kids. Yeah. We have a very high level at Paws, as you know. So, the first thing that people ask me is, is 45 minutes enough for RAD Ballet? And we do 2 45-minute classes at separate times in the week for RAD Ballet. And then we do do a ballet troupe class as well. And I talk about that because I do feel that the troupe class does lift the standard because they are doing another 45 minutes of ballet, even though they're learning a routine in there. It is still working on the steps that they would do in their exams. Not everyone does the Troop classes.

Okay, so they either do 2 or 3 45-minute classes. Yep.

We last year got the best results we've ever, ever gotten in RAD exams. I think we only had 6 kids that got a merit, and out of 80 kids we sent, everyone else got a distinction. We got 14 high distinctions, which is insane. We have never ever got that result, and we may never get it again. But the reason I'm telling you that is because We made the 45 minutes work. Yes. Now with our older kids, they do hour and a half. So once they get to Interfound, Intermediate, obviously they need 2 hour and a half classes. Yes. And they do a 45-minute pointe class. So I'm not trying to say that we're not giving them the time, but people— it blows people's mind. But I think it's quality. I really did. I had a studio—

Quality over quantity, right?

I had a studio owner say to me the other day, our kids' technique's so bad, I'm gonna make them do 3 ballet lessons a week. And I said, well, You can make them do 3 ballet lessons a week, but if you don't have an exceptional ballet teacher who's actually teaching them correctly, you can do 10 lessons a week and it's not gonna mean anything. Yeah. So it is the quality of the teacher, it is knowing to get in and not stuff around. I feel like half the time it takes them 10 minutes to mark the roll, Amanda. By the time they let the kids wander in and they have a little scroll on their phone, and let me know if this sounds familiar to you out there, Come on, girls!

But they're not really trying that hard to hurry them up.

They let a couple of them tell a story and then they mark the roll and it's like quarter past anyway. So, you know, you just have to train them to be smarter than that. You come in, you're marking the roll as they're doing their first warm-up or their first exercise, or your assistant is marking the roll. Like, you don't need to sit down and call everybody's name out. Just get in and get stuff done. That's what happens. But it does allow for 4 classes in the afternoon over 3

For the kids to take 4 classes in a

row, so not for the whole

afternoon. Correct, so from

4 to 4:45 they can do jazz, 4:45 to 5:30 tap, 5:30 to 6:15 ballet, 6:15 to 7 lyrical. So that is a game changer.

I had an interesting conversation with a studio owner this week. They're changing to— we'd already talked them in a while ago to changing to 45-minute classes across the board, because I had some classes half an hour, some 45, some an hour. which meant the timetable was all like, didn't line up and made it very hard for back-to-back. So she'd already decided she was doing all 45-minute classes. However, when I looked at it, she wasn't fitting enough in for the afternoon because she was starting at 4 some afternoons and 4:15 other afternoons.

Right.

And I said to her, what time can you start in the afternoon? She's like, oh, my parents like, the later start times. I'm like, cool, yeah, that's not the question. What time do the primary schools finish? What time can they actually get there? So we just did a bit of, a bit of a fun calc, and this isn't right for everybody else, but if she started at 3:45, she could squeeze in another class till 9 o'clock. Whereas before, if she starts at 4, it was, you know, it was harder to get that extra class in because then 9:15 finish is a bit pushing it, right? Yep. Or even after that. So I said to her, okay, let's actually calculate what that costs you. So putting in though that extra time slot, if she started at 3:45, she could do the last class 8:15 till 9, 2 studios running, 4 days a week, Monday to Thursday, right? Mm-hmm. If she didn't start at that time and started later and had to pull out those, so it ends up being 8 classes a week, you know, 2 a night times 4 nights, It was actually $92,000 worth of wasted revenue. Whoa! Yeah.

That's crazy.

Just presuming she had like 15 in those classes. It was not a high, just based on hers, like that's just how we kind of calculated it. And I'm like, cool. So we've just calculated that by opening at 4 and not being able to run that extra class, that is potentially $92,000. Now tell me, can we start at 3:45? Yes, one or two parents might go, oh, I liked the 4 o'clock start time better. But does that mean they don't enroll? Like, you've got to work that out, and that's gonna be different at different studios. Yep. Based on, you know, your school finish times and all of that. But I'm like, that is a really good reason. And for $92,000, even if one parent can't get there and unenrolls from one class, you're still doing so much better because she was struggling to fit everything into her timetable with only 2 studios.

Yep.

So I think thinking about it smartly, like that can be such a game changer.

And prioritizing classes over privates. We hear about this all the time. Um, and you know, I have a lot of privates in my studio, but then people will say to me, oh well, um, there's no other time for it. And I'm like, well, are you operating all day Saturday and all day Sunday? Because in my head, you can do privates on those days. You don't need to do it if you've only got 2 studios you shouldn't be doing privates during that time. And in fact, even if you've got 7 studios like I do, and there's a class that's gonna make way more money than the private, then you should be running the class. So it's knowing that stuff as well and really thinking smart about— I was talking to someone the other day and they were like, no one's really doing these graded tap classes, but I've put them on anyway because the few kids that are doing the grades are doing them. And I'm like, Well, then don't do them.

We've got to make business choices too.

Yeah, or don't do them at a prime time. You need to then put them on— if there's 4 kids doing their tap exam, then put it on a Saturday afternoon when it doesn't matter. But I do feel like we don't utilize Saturdays and Sundays enough, and I get that studio owners want time off. I'm not suggesting that you have to necessarily be the teacher, but there are lots of teachers out there that will teach on those days, and I do think that we need to think Smarter about saying my studio is completely full because it's not.

It's not. I had a rule, just thinking of that. My rule was no solos between 3:45 and 9.

Yeah, right.

I had 6 studios. Uh, no solos between 3:45 and 9 are ever to be scheduled. Yeah. Now, to be completely, um, transparent and honest, sometimes they were. Yeah, but not until

everything else was in

place, like late February. It was only when classes were like canceled or, hey, there's no way I can run, I just don't have enough in that, you know, one studio happened to be free at 8:15 at night or something like that.

Right.

But generally, to start with, absolutely no solos. All the solos were done around those times and had to be made work. And then we would open them up later, but that would be my very last, very, very last, after I tried everything to make a full class. Because a full class make so much more money.

Interesting.

I was very strict on that. And that was like the mindset I went, and then I would change it, but that was kinda like my headspace to start with. But yeah, let's talk about some other timetabling things that we think are really, really important. So my big thing is when you're doing your timetable, think about your goal of how many classes you want your students to take in a row. So if, for example, your, you know, 5 to 8-year-olds are currently averaging 2.1 glasses, and you're like, I'd really like them to do 3. I would be making sure that you have 3 next to each other. Yep. On an afternoon that makes sense for them, because you can't go, I'd love them to do 3, but yeah, they've got to come in the extra night for, you know, there's 2 on one day and one's another day. That's not gonna help you enroll the 3, or If your goal is to get them to do 4, can you put 4 back to back, or can you do 2 and 2? Depending on what works best for your studio. But being really smart about that, you know, I'd have kids that I'd want 5, so it would always be 3 and 2. So then they only have to come 2 days, but I'd think about it like that.

I saw one of our SGC members write the smartest thing on Slack, I don't know if you saw it, the other day. So someone asked, what sort of classes do you group together in your timetable? 'Cause we're all working on timetables, in SGC at the moment, and someone said pick the 2 most popular classes. Let's say your most popular class is jazz and your second most popular in that age group is hip-hop. Put them on 2 separate days and then build the rest of the classes out around that.

Absolutely, so clever.

That was so smart.

Yeah,

so smart.

Yeah,

I, I loved that, and I've never thought of it in that way before. I probably do do it. Yes. But I haven't done it to the degree to look at, okay, what are actually the 2 most popular 8 and under classes, and have I put them on separate days? And also not putting that class first, but putting it second. Yeah, in the middle of the night. In the middle of the 3. Like, I thought that was clever.

Absolutely. I think that's so the way to think about it. And so build the timetable with sales in mind. I think that's the big thing.

That is what we're trying to say, yeah.

And, you know, build it not like, hey, what would be good for this teacher or whatever? It's like, What would be good for me to sell this timetable? Sell it to parents so that they take as many classes as possible. So that needs to be easy start and finish times, lined up classes, like you really need to be thinking about it like that when you do the timetable. And so, you know, I think that's a really great way to kind of visualize it. I like it to be like color-coded in like age groups, for example. Yep. And that way I can sort of say, okay, so a kid that's this age can do This version or this version or this and this version, you know, and sort of see what their afternoon and like designing their journey, I guess.

Yep, I love it. Now you have created a game changer in the timetable world.

Well, I hope so. I absolutely hope so. Like, you know, um, we've been working really hard with our SGC members and it's something we wanted to put out to the world because I think it can be such a game changer as You know, a way to really like focus on sales in your timetable. So we have created an incredible timetable optimizer that uses AI but also uses a lot of logic that I've pre-programmed into it to really help students, you know, design the perfect timetable.

It's pretty crazy. So if this is something that you are interested in having and making your timetabling easier, because that's really what it does, it makes your timetabling Way easier.

Yes.

Um, then you can grab that from us.

Yeah, absolutely. Check out our socials for all the details because I think you're gonna love it. It's an incredible tool that really helps, uh, you know, start your timetable, think about how to group things together, you know, know that you have to, you know, put grade 1 ballet has to be on a Wednesday at 4 o'clock, but then builds everything else around it with those sales in mind. So I think you're gonna love this tool. Check out our socials for all the info.

All right, friends, we hope you enjoyed our timetable session today as well as a little bit about reality TV. All

right, I'm gonna have to start watching Dance Moms. I'm gonna jump in with my kids and we will start that. Thanks, friends. 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 2 weeks free in Dance Principles United Tribe. We would love to see you there.