Scale your Dance Studio Part 2: From $250k - $500k
27 Nov 2024 · 33 min
Amanda Barr, Rebecca Lou Brennan, and Nathan discuss how dance studio owners can double revenue from $250k to $500k. They cover hiring staff, building systems, social media marketing, and when to take bigger risks to grow.
Hello, friends. I'm Amanda Barr.
And I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan. And welcome to Dance Principals 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, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Dance Principles United podcast. We are still here together in person. We were on such a roll recording this episode. We're like, let's just jump straight in and do part two, right? So if you didn't listen to last week's podcast, we are going through talking about all the different stages of growth of a dance studio owner's journey, because basically we have the two experts in it, right? Both Manda and Bec.
Nice of you to say.
I know, well, I've got a bunch of you guys up, don't I? Manda and Bec both started their studios from small and grew them into multi, like million dollar studios through every phase of their life, through having kids, through doing all the things. So wherever you are in your dance studio, on your journey, we know that they have been there, experienced, and come out the other side thriving. So we wanted to, number one, like, jump in and within this little series that we're doing, jump in and talk through that, what it was like for them, but also to give you tips as a studio owner to help you navigate through wherever you're at. And remember, like, what we love talking about is that you're building the studio of your dreams, right, guys?
Absolutely. And so I believe we're talking about people, people who are on a revenue of about 250 to 500,000. So we're talking revenue, just to be super clear, not profit, not anything else at that kind of revenue level. But, you know, as we talked about before, it has to be the studio of your dreams. And for a lot of people, this is like the perfect revenue level. This might be the perfect sort of size that you can afford to pay yourself a decent wage. You know, if you're at this kind of level, you could probably be paying yourself between maybe 80 and, you know.
Maybe anywhere between 80 and 200.
Really depends how well you run it, what your lease is, like, what your rent and your area is, like all of that kind of thing as well. You know, you could be doing that and that might be the absolute, like, studio of your dreams. And that's great because that's what we're all about, right? Like, you know, more, more, more doesn't always mean Better? Nope. And for some people, that might be great. And also one of the big things we kind of touched on it last time is also profitability, because sometimes higher revenue doesn't actually mean much more profit, but more stress. It definitely means.
Right. So true. I found that a lot. That there's like a sweet spot and then there's the part where you're like.
This is not a sweet spot at all.
And you, you know, and you actually making less than you probably were in the sweet spot. And then you get to the sweet spot again. Yeah.
And for me, that 250 to 500, I think that is one sweet spot. I think, you know, and just to be completely transparent, like, when you kind of get over that 500 maybe to like that 750, 8, 800, 900, like, that's a hard. For me, that was a hard growth period and it was a tricky one. But I think this 250 to 500, for certain people, that might be like, hey, I'm gonna get there and I'm gonna stick at it and stay out there. And I think that might be great. Wasn't what I wanted to do. That wasn't what you wanted to do, Beck. But I do think that that could be great. But I think, you know, taking advantage of it. So we're going to give some tips on how to make the most of being in this spot or also, if you want to grow to the next bracket, how to get there, I guess.
Yeah, totally. And I think just going back to that 0 to 250, let's say that you are in that spot where you are ready to, you know, you're getting a bit more money in and you'd like to let go of something. That's what we wanted to touch on first, right?
Yeah, absolutely. Like, yeah, well, let's. Let's talk about it. Like, the first thing that you think you need to do bec. And like, maybe thinking back to your time doing it. Yeah. We did talk about last week. You guys can't remember exactly when because it was quite a few years ago now. Like, exactly when you broke through old.
Is what you try to say.
Experienced is what I'm trying to say. When you guys broke through that, that sort of revenue barrier, what do you think was the main things that. That you started doing to help set you up for success as you did it?
Well, I don't know if this set me up for success, but I remember this because Mel brought it up in the podcast with a couple of weeks ago, and so she said That I said to her, do you want to work a couple of afternoons a week and do a little bit of admin? Now that was probably the first admin person that I bought in to the studio by far at the time. And it would have been just her writing some notes out and because we didn't have email there, so it probably would have been her typing some newsletters out. She was doing journalism at uni. She was a good friend at that point in time. And so she had some pretty good writing skills. And I probably gave her a couple of afternoons of maybe doing some letters and some writing newsletters and maybe answering the phone and you know, doing a little bit of that side stuff for maybe, I would say a max of five hours a week would have been the first thing that I let go of.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a really important thing. I think it's. What you're trying to say, Beck, is that, yeah, we are talking about quite a big range here. Like, obviously there's a big difference between you bringing in $251,000 and $500,000. You're not going to make that jump straight away. It's going to be something that you work at. And that means, Beck, I think what you're trying to say is that, you know, you don't get to 251,000, think, right, I'm going to bring in a full time admin person now that will help with all my admins. Is that kind of what you're saying?
Oh, absolutely. I didn't have anyone full time in my studio until probably seven or eight years ago. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's like the way that I always look at business.
And I still look at it like.
This today, is if I let go of that little thing, then I need to get rid of. I need to then make extra money here to get rid of the next thing I don't want so that I can make extra money here. It's never just like, I'm just gonna let go of all of those things all at once. It's like tiny bit by tiny bit. Is that how you. That's how I've always done it.
Absolutely.
Even today I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pay this person for this. What am I gonna do now instead of that.
Yes. Time.
Yeah, that's gonna then make me go to this thing. That's. Yeah, absolutely.
And I always thought about it in terms of, okay, well, if I'm bringing in this staff member, I need X amount of people. So that I can stay on the same wage. I think that's a really.
Yes.
Yeah, maybe that's really what we're trying to hone in on. I would always look at my wage and go, I'm not dropping my wage from what I'm at currently. So if I'm bringing on this new staff member, yes, you've got to take a little bit of a risk. But I need X amount of new students to be able to afford to pay this staff member. And you can't do that if all of a sudden you bring in a full time person because that money doesn't.
Just magically appear even like, even on like what award wage. Now a full time person with like just a level three skills, we're talking close to $50,000 a year. That's a lot of money.
Absolutely. So it's like starting it slowly, giving them a couple of hours, seeing how that works. Moving it forward, I guess is the biggest thing, I guess in this price bracket. If this is your current like, sorry, not price bracket, revenue bracket, is really being like strategic with how you start getting help. I also think the biggest thing that you kind of, you know, as you start getting more help, it's like making a choice of where you want the help. Right. And that could be different for different people. I think it's like going, hey, teaching's my passion. I'm gonna get a bit of admin help or growing the business. And admin is my passion. I'm gonna get a bit of teaching help, but not both at the same time. And I think that's a big mistake we see from people like, oh, I just need help with everything. I'm like, then what the hell are you doing? You still need to be working, like, don't you think?
Like, absolutely.
Like, what the hell are you doing? Like, either you're teaching or you're doing the admin. And I, to be honest, under 500,000 admin is not a full time job. No, it's a, you know, maybe 15, 20 hour a week job. So you still should have at least another 20 hours to work if you're working full time in this. So, you know, look, I know that's me being a bit controversial and all of that, but you know, I, I'm a big believer in working hard for this kind of a business if you want to grow it. So if you want help and you want to get out of this price, this revenue bracket and keep moving forward, it's making a choice. Do you get the help on the teaching or the Admin. Probably not both.
Yeah.
I totally agree on one.
And I think it is working out what you truly love doing in your business and also what your superpower is. We talk to our people about this a lot, but what is your superpower in the business? What is the thing that you are the greatest at? And I know something that you were great at was that front facing chatting to clients that I am so bad at that it's ridiculous. I'm really good at selling to clients.
And I'm really underselling yourself on that day. I'm not.
Honestly, I can think of nothing worse than sitting at the front desk and doing small talk with people.
You have done it because you had to at some point.
Yes. Ish. I was always in the classroom. I think if I don't know that, like, I definitely went out and spoke to people, but it was never the I'm gonna sit there for four hours and small talk with people. I just didn't have a receptionist. And I've always sold to clients and I've always enrolled them and got them to sign up to lots of classes and I've talked them into doing more classes and that sort of thing. But I didn't have a front desk person when the business first started. They just used to take their kids in.
Yeah.
Drop around the cash.
Yeah. We didn't know exactly. We had the. Did you have the letterbox that you put the. You probably didn't, but that's what we had. Yeah, we had the letterbox that you put the envelopes of cash in. So I was never. I was never that front desk person. And I never can be. I'm not a small talk kind of. I find those conversations quite awkward.
Yeah.
And look, I think just tying back into it a couple of things that you guys said, just getting your quick opinions on it when you were talking about, you know, giving away tasks. I think a really big thing that people miss is that we need to give away lower value tasks.
Yes.
In order to take on higher value tasks. An easy example I always go to is cleaning the studio. At one stage. Mandarinova used to clean the studio. Absolutely. Used to be there and help. Because we've been together that long, everybody. I'm sure you did the same, Beck. But these days cleaning is probably something you can outsource for $30 an hour. So let's outsource that low value task. We know that if you all say the best ballet teacher in your studio, we know that bringing in a high level ballet teacher is going to be a lot more than $30 an hour. Absolutely right. So like you can't be Outsourcing the $60 an hour task or $80 an hour task of teaching that high level ballet to still do the $30 an hour task playing. Yes, Be smart thinking about that.
I love that. I think that's so, so important. Right. Because I see that way too often, that it's like, oh, I'm going to get this ballet teacher in. But now I'm so broke that I'm cleaning my studio.
And you're like, cool, look like, you.
Know, no shade on people cleaning their studio. Like, I totally think people should be cleaning their studio a lot of the time. But like, wouldn't you rather be teaching the class and paying someone? Like, yeah, that doesn't make sense to me because, you know, that's your superpower. Most of us, that's our superpower is teaching. So be in the classroom and spend the most amount of time doing that I think is the biggest thing, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think another thing you touched on, Amanda, and I think this is maybe just a better way for our listeners to understand. You talked about like getting somebody in to get ex new students or something like that. And in our coaching group somebody talked about it. They see every hire they make. They need a return on that investment. Getting new staff in isn't an expense, it's an investment. So if you bring somebody in for 8 hours of admin a week, that means you're expecting like that might cost you 25k for the whole year. That means that you're expecting to add 13 new students, whatever that is for you. But like doing the maths around that and having that expectation around getting a return on that investment of a staff member.
I love that because that's kind of what we were talking about in terms of not dropping back your weight. Right. It's like continuing vesting in that. And yeah, rather than new staff members just coming as an expense and just coming making your total profit or your total wage come down, it's like, well, no, I want to grow with that. And that's regardless if it was an admin person or a teacher, because a teacher should be bringing in new students as well. Because you've now got this incredible. Maybe you didn't teach tap, so now you've got this awesome TAP teacher who should be bringing in new students or getting kids to take an extra class a week or whatever that is. So it's bringing in more revenue into.
Your business and being smart around that as well. Yeah, especially with Those teachers. I think it's interesting we're saying tap and ballet, which are two very niche things that most of us have to either get a tap or either get a ballet. Right. Because we kind of. It's one or the other. Yet it's probably the two things that the majority of studios put the less least amount of marketing out for.
Yes.
Isn't that interesting? And they're probably the smallest classes in the majority of studios that we're talking to. I know there's exceptions to that, obviously, and there's beautiful, amazing ballet studios out there and some tap studios that are huge, but majority of studios, they're the least. And it's probably the most expensive. And you've got to question why we do that, why we aren't putting it out there more and why I question it within my own studio. Absolutely. It's something that we really have to think about and look at within our studio is why aren't we putting ourselves out there more for that.
Absolutely. Now, I think a big part of, if you're looking to, number one, like, move out of that previous revenue category into this one, and then definitely, like, getting towards that $500,000 mark, I think the importance of having good systems. So what would you say are the key systems you need to start looking at in your business to help you, number one, like, get into this 250 to 500k and then move through it profitably?
Yeah. Okay. So I think this is a really interesting conversation because I think this is a key, pivotal time in your studio. If you're under 250k, you can know every parent's name. You can know where they're up to on their, you know, in their fees. You can know a lot of that off the top of your head. You can do a lot of things manually as well.
You can almost be doing it all yourself, like we talked about.
Absolutely. And that's fine. And that's really great. But as you want, if you want to grow through this, it's the perfect time to put systems in place so that you can grow with ease and not get this like, oh, my God, all of a sudden I've got these new kids and I don't have enough time. And I don't. I can't do this. I can't do that. And then you, like, make this, like, you hire someone because you're all of a sudden overwhelmed and you make this terrible decision. You know, all of this we've seen happen. Right. So I think it's really important, number one, that you get really good software systems, studio systems in place. You know, we're talking about enrollment systems such as Jackrabbit Dance, your pro Class manager, Studio lab, Studio lab, any of those great programs that you get in. I think that's really important. The other thing I think that's really important is for you to really make sure that you are understanding these systems. We touched on this in the last podcast as well. But understanding these systems really, really well yourself, having a really good general all round knowledge of every single system that goes into your business and every single part of your system. So at this point, I really think if you want to go past it, you need to be investing in your own learnings. Just like we tell our dancers, you need to invest in your own learning. You've got to invest in your own learning. You need to learn the basis, the basics of marketing, how to run Facebook ads. You need to know how to run those studio software systems. You need to understand about having a good CRM and about lead management. You need to understand all of these kind of parts of your business and have a really good general broad knowledge of everything. So then as you start to go past it, you can start giving that off. I think that's a big thing for me.
Yeah, the thing that I was going to say straight away is direct debit by far. And I know that a lot of those systems do that. Anyone who's now saying that they're still invoicing people and getting them to pay the term by term is just such craziness to me. Everything in our life is direct debit. Everything's just taken out. It's such a natural thing now. And I know that's the biggest, not just game changer money wise, but game changer time wise, like systems that do.
It and easy systems do it. It's crazy because, you know, we've worked with studio owners before and we talked about this on the last one. You talked about people just being busy for the sake of being busy. If you are spending huge amounts of time invoicing, chasing payments, you know, fixing accounts, direct debiting manually, like some of that through some of those older systems, you still have to like go in and fix everybody's direct debit. You are wasting huge amounts of time and time that could be spent on so much higher revenue generating activities that could grow your business.
Yeah, I think what I see a lot of studio owners balk at a lot of the time is the cost in investing in X Studio software system. Yeah, whatever, whatever it happens to be like, oh, that's like $100 a month, you know, $1200 a year. Like, that's a lot of money. But I think we need to flip our mindset. What's the cost of not investing in that? Like I said, like we, you know, the studio software we use, like lots of people know, we use Jackrabbit. That means that in an entire year, we spent maybe, maybe an hour setting up the INV invoicing for the year to run, because we had it done automated. Yeah, one hour. So that means I know that there's studio owners out there that either themselves or get a staff member in and spend at least what, five hours a week invoicing, invoicing, then chasing out, then reconciling. Like, so even if you're just spending five hours a week on that wise, 200 hours a year, 200 hours going in, testing my maths here. But 200 hours at $30 an hour, please check the maths, is like $6,000 a year. So you're already paying five times more than you would have been. And I think that's just the tip of the iceberg, right?
Absolutely. I think that's a really important thing, is to really make sure that you are being smart around that, being super smart around how you're investing your time. You know, if you're spending five hours a week on accounts or invoicing or even two hours a week, like, wouldn't that time be better teaching a high end ballet class for you rather than bringing out a ballet teacher, you know, because you were so busy and didn't have time, Wouldn't it be better on, you know, spending an hour learning for yourself Facebook ads and an hour implementing each week that would be such a more beneficial use of that time.
Okay, Beck, if you were looking to scale past that 250k revenue mark, what would be your first thing you would do to get that going?
Well, something that I think a lot of Sierra owners are missing is being strong in their social media game. And obviously back in our day, that wasn't really a thing. And we had newspaper ads. Right. Like that was the thing then. But the social media is where everyone's at. And I think something that we hear so many studio owners say all the time is that they're just not into it. They can't be bothered with it. It's always the last thing on their plate. Like they'll happily spend hours upon hours doing their costumes or working out what songs to use or all that sort of stuff. But the power in that social media is hectic, obviously. You know, I'm a huge believer in knowing your Facebook ads and getting those out there consistently and all of that is a game changer. But just your organic socials as well. Because the way that I look at it is, and I don't know if you guys are like this, but if I ever see an ad pop up that I'm interested in, the first thing that I do is either go to their social media page or I go to their website. Is that not what we do?
Absolutely.
I don't think anyone actually buys straight into that ad.
Especially it's the first time seeing a brand.
Right, Exactly. So if I was looking for a school of some type for my kids, then I would straightaway go into that and I would look through what their social media is. Now. If they nothing on their story and nothing representing that ad in their feed and they haven't put anything on their feed for six months, I'm never gonna opt into the brand.
I look at the dates. I always look at the dates because everyone does. Yeah. I'm like, oh, this was posted 8 weeks ago.
What the hell they've been doing in.
The last eight weeks? Yeah, like, that just blows my mind. You know what else I really think people need to be focusing on at this time kind of level is doing it all yourself. The people that tell me that, you know that they're getting a social media expert in or they're getting a content creator and SEO.
Oh, Nathan, an SEO. Absolutely not.
We are small businesses. Do it yourself. Don't get me wrong. Like a photographer for a once a year promo photo shoot to use those photos or whatever. Great. Or, you know, maybe if you get one, one video made that you use consistently for two years. Perfect. But generally your organic socials should be done by you and done well and putting like effort and time into them, not it being an afterthought. Like, oh, I didn't post the kids winning at that comp last week. I should make sure I put a photo of them up with the trophy.
I think it would be fair to say that we. I don't know. Look, even I'm guilty of this. Sometimes you feel like you're playing, playing on your phone. Like you feel like you're not. Like, I think we need to let go of that mindset.
Yeah.
But like being on our phone to do our social media stuff for our businesses is actual work. Like it's okay to sit there for an hour and a half on your phone if you're doing productive Work for your business. Right.
I think people always just say to me that they forget and I totally do get that because I think I have gone through periods of the business where we haven't had great social media and now I know that it's just a habit forming thing and you know, it's just you have to pick like when you get used to it. I used to go to comp and never take any photos or videos ever. Now I'm the person taking all the photos and videos all the time because I know how powerful that is and I think that's the key. Like you do just need to get used to it and when you learn the power of it, you do start to get obsessed and excited by it like anything. But you've got to get yourself into that habit first.
Yeah. I think the analogy I always heard that I really liked is, you know, as we're sitting here overlooking the city, David Jones is just over, over the back there if you're watching on YouTube. And we all know a big thing in Sydney was always the David Jones Christmas window displays as we come out to Sydney and I know that Melbourne's got lots similar as well. I'm sure all the capital's like the big department store that had the incredible window display and lots of times in all businesses that window display in the high traffic area was super, super impressive important. Now those businesses aren't going to have spend all the money to be in the middle of the city and have a shit shop front window. Well we don't even need to pay the money to have high traffic areas in the middle of a city anymore. With social media we've been able like our shop fronts are essentially in people's pockets now. So if you're not keeping your socials, your organic socials regularly up to date that's like you having shop front in prime location that you're just covering with newspaper or letting look old and cramped.
Having dust form on it. Right.
Or spider webs in the corner.
And I think if you are really aiming to kind of get out of this bracket and to move forward and get over that kind of, you know, the top end of this bracket that we're talking about towards the 500k good socials is where it is at and investing the time, you know, putting aside the time, prioritizing it, prioritizing the right things. You, you know, you talked about what else in terms of systems and stuff. I think prioritizing the right things is really, really important in this and really making sure that you know, this is a big part of your week is planning your socials, putting time into it, making it a thing, not just letting it be a afterthought.
And good socials doesn't mean you have to have a perfect background with perfectly dressed children, looking immaculate, doing everything, you know, to the nth degree, like organic is where it's at. Like it's fine if their hair looks a bit ruffled or they're, you know, not in immaculate things. That is totally fine. Because that's actually what parents see as being realistic. And it's okay to have that, right?
Absolutely.
Yep. Without a doubt. Now, we did sort of talk about. I just want to circle back to it again. I think in this phase, the importance of those systems for two reasons. Number one, making sure you've got your systems. Because if you do find this is your studio sweet spot, having really good systems in place helps you be significantly more profitable, which is putting more money in your pocket.
Absolutely.
And building the life that you want for yourself or the other side of it. If you do want to grow past this and out of it, setting up and having those systems tight in this phase is absolutely vital to go past it. So is it like you talked about studio software, Beck, you talked about having direct debit with that. Is there any other sort of systems that you can think of, of the top of your head that's important to give?
I think at this stage, this is the most important thing. And like what you said, Nath, you know, making yourself profitable, if that's where you want to stay, is really important. So making sure that you and you continue to be like that, because don't forget, if you decide that this is your sweet spot and where you want to be, you can't just go, I don't need to market because I. I don't want to grow. You're going to always have a dropout rate. You've got to keep marketing, so you need to make sure you do keep doing those things. So I think it's really important to kind of start working on those things, working on those systems, prioritizing the important things in your business so that you can be profitable or if you want to grow up, that you, you know, prioritize those things even more so, so that you can get past this and really grow your business whilst investing in yourself as well.
Yeah, absolutely. Now, I've still got when I grow up going around in my head already, but yeah. Is there. Let's talk about. We wrapped up like we sort of talked about at the end of Last podcast on our top tips for those that maybe want to move out of this bracket and grow their studio past the 250 to 500. So what are the top tips we are looking at for that?
Oh, I think we've just covered them a lot. But hopefully to recap, you know, definitely, you know, start small, start giving away jobs small. Don't jump all in.
Yeah.
You should still be doing a lot of it yourself. Hard work equals success and I think that's a big thing for me.
I've got a lot to talk about. Yeah. The first thing I want to say.
Is circle it everybody.
Yeah. Like first of all, when you do get a full timer and I've seen this mistakes so many times, people only calculate it over the 40 weeks. So they're like, oh, the full time is going to cost me $900 a week. Right. It's a cheap full time rhino. And then they work that out over their normal 40 weeks. But they have to remember that they have to pay them for the full year obviously. Also if they are sick, you have to replace someone with them every single time that they're sick. And that's such a huge one that you paying two people, you're paying two people and that's such a huge one that you don't realize as much. So I think that side of things to grow sometimes you have to lose almost to be able to grow. And that, that can be really scary at times, you know, if you're taking a risk.
Yeah, right.
So if you need to grow and then take on a bigger premises is a perfect example that I'm thinking of right now. Then you're gonna have to invest money in that. That's money you're gonna have to pay back. And there's just so much to it when you start expanding that you don't realize more students doesn't always equal more money. And like I was saying before, there's those sweet spots where you do go, yeah, I'm really killing it now. Do I want to grow or do I just want to sit in the sweet spot? And if you want to grow, you've got to realize that there, there's risk. Exactly what you're saying.
And I think you've got to, you know, just talking on race, I think you've got to back yourself. Right. You know, we've seen that with so many of our amazing studio growth club members. Some of them have taken big risks. They've invested a lot of money into their self development, you know, both through programs, through, you know, Premises, all those things, but they back themselves. And I am also a big believer that to be a good business person you need a little bit of risk because it pushes you to do better. Otherwise you kind of like sit back and you don't try as hard. Whereas if you're like, oh shit, I've got to make this money, I've got to make this work, makes you work hard. So I guess that's my biggest tip is, you know, sometimes a bit of risk is good. Push yourself to the next level.
I've got one more thing.
Absolutely. I'll just say calculated risk is what we always do and that's like, I think that's been the biggest thing in our business growth. And both things our like, I guess because that's so closely tied to the growth of our personal wealth as well, is that we've taken calculated risks along the way and through good management or the good luck, those calculated risks have always paid off for us. Absolutely. So that's what's helped us. Like there's a couple of times and we've talked about another podcast that things got got a bit sketchy for a while as we were taking those calculated risks.
Absolutely.
But they always paid off. And making sure that's one thing that I see studio owners do sometimes is not match their goals with that level of risk they're willing to take. And there's no right answer for that. But just being mindful, like if you're telling us you want to reach for the stars and go for those big lofty goals and make those big moves, but you're not willing to take on any risk, then that's maybe just something you need to look at and get those things back in the one.
What was your last thought, Beck? That you want to leave us with.
Well, team because as you get bigger, you're going to bring staff members on and then the biggest mistake we see studio owners make is they don't train their team and they think that because they've employed that person that they are going to do the right things in their job, which is never ever the case. They don't interview well enough, then they don't keep an eye on them. And I can say this because I've done it myself multiple times. They don't keep an eye on them, they don't bring everyone together as a team. And so that is where we see things go really, really pear shaped. And you've got to value that team. You've got to value the fact that if you're stepping out of jobs. You have to train people continuously and invest time into managing 100% and realize that when it was you doing all the things, that was fine because you're managing yourself. But as. As soon, soon as you start bringing those extra people in, you now have to manage them.
Yes.
And it's a great time to start setting those expectations. Once you move into, like, once you've just started making more than 250k, you've got a small team and you're starting to build that out, it's the perfect time to be setting those expectations and getting your systems around, your staff in place, having those training days. And then as you grow, it sort of naturally fills in with that time.
And it is time like it really is. And you know, even. Even me now, when I'm really lacking in time to train my team at the times I need to be, you see things start to falter all the time.
Yeah.
It's just. It's such a. That is so. That glue is what is needed in and around it. It's so important.
Absolutely. It's all about that, right?
Yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us on this second part of our series, talking about all the different stages of studio growth. Absolutely. Love chatting through all these things with you guys. And we can't wait. Next episode we'll be talking around scaling from past that 500k mark, which we know is like a really big one. Like we talked about today, this 250 to 500 is a real sweet spot. And then what scaling past 500k into that next bracket looks like. We can't wait to chat about that with you.
See you then.
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.










