Simple Ways To Make More Money In Your Dance Studio - Part 1

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. Well, hello friends and welcome to the Dance Principles United podcast. I have the amazing, incredible Nath with me today. How are you, Nath?

Good morning, Bec. I'm good. I'm good. We are up here in— I feel like I haven't been up here for ages because like it has been a hot minute because you, yeah, you and Amanda came and did a whole bunch last time and then it's been Expo time and all the things. So it's good to be back here as always, um, in the studio, sunny Penrith, in sunny Penrith recording our podcast. But always, always a super exciting day. So glad to be here.

So awesome. Now, you did an incredible session at Expo.

Yes.

And we're going to talk about that today. But I wanted to start by saying, Nath in our company is so good at teaching people like me who are very not good at numbers, numbers stuff.

Well, it's like, it's something that I've always been, just like, you know, most people listening to this podcast are teachers by nature.

Yes.

And that's me as well. And like, whilst A lot of people listening know that I wasn't a dance teacher. I was always around the dance studio. Amanda and I have been together since we were 16, and I was there the day she opened the studio and always been around. But my teaching background is in maths. So for, I think, 8 or 9 years, I was a high school maths teacher, but all the way through university, I was a maths tutor. So taught maths in some way, shape, or form for 20+ years. And it's something that I'm super passionate about. Obviously, when you teach high school maths, It's not about teaching the high level of, you know, what I went through doing my maths degree at uni. It's about being able to break down maths into basic numeracy for Year 7 and 8 students that are struggling or everything all the way through that, right?

And I feel like our Studio Growth Club members are so lucky with that. I actually, at my expo, showed the— did you know this?

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Someone was telling me the other day.

I talked with Amanda. We did the master spreadsheet because that was the biggest, one of the biggest game changers for my studio because I could really see where to put money up, where to not, like it was incredible.

Yeah. And that's what like I enjoy getting into with studio owners because there's just like with so much, you know, we don't get into owning a studio for the business side of it, but the reality is it's there and it's probably the most important thing at the end of the day, having money coming in the door to be able to do what you want with and have the life that you want to go with it. And so it's super important that you have at least a base level understanding of it. And there's so much distraction. You watch sometimes people get in like business YouTubes or help me understand my business numbers and the YouTube goes into all this high-level accounting stuff or financial stuff and spreadsheets and budgets and projections and profit and loss and blah, blah, blah. and people get overwhelmed and end up giving up and sticking their heads in the sand.

Sounds like me.

So I really enjoy being able to strip all that back and being able to help studio owners just focus on the numbers that they need to focus on to help grow their studio and, and understand what's helping make their studio profitable so that they can do all the things that they want and it's the studio of their dreams.

Love it. Now I'm going to be honest with you. I, when I first opened and probably for the first 15 years of running joining my studio wouldn't have even known what revenue or profit was. So should we start there?

And absolutely. And it's something that like, it's something sometimes I always jump back and I know some people can go, oh, I know this, Nathan, but like it's completely understandable if you don't. And you know, there's also like the nuances in the relationship between them. So look, obviously, not obviously, sorry, but revenue, we just think of all the money that comes in. So every dollar that hits your bank account, whether that's parents transferring fees or your direct debit money hitting the account, or it's that fun day of the year when concert ticket sales drop into the account. That's always one of the best days.

Costumes.

Yep. When costumes, uniforms, any money that comes into your bank account in any way, shape, or form, just think of that as our revenue. That's the most, the easiest way to think about it. And then unfortunately, as business owners, like, we've got expenses. We've got to pay the rent. We've got to pay the bills. We've got to pay our staff wages. For the incredible team members that we have helping us build our studios. And then, and look, I do hate describing it this way, but that's a whole nother podcast. What's left over once we've paid all our expenses. So once we take our revenue and we've paid all our expenses, the typical notion of Accounting 101 is that that money that's left over is our profit. And the reality is, you know, the old saying is revenue is for vanity, but profit is for sanity. There's a third little bit, like cash flow is for reality as well. But it's one thing for people to talk about the revenue they make. It's super important. But we also want to make sure that we're focusing on when we're talking about revenue, which we're talking about today. Yep. Is we want to be increasing revenue in a way that's also going to drive up profit as well. Because there's, you know, two easy ways to increase our profit. Number 1 is to make more revenue, which we're going to talk about today. Number 2 is to cut your expenses, which is sometimes not as fun.

But it's also hard. Like, you know, when I've talked to accountants and stuff before, they're like, you know, just get rid of tap. Tap's not making you any money. Why don't you just get rid of tap? Well, that Advanced 2 ballet class only has 2 kids in it. Get rid of that. And so they don't get it. Like, you know, it is tricky for a dance studios sometimes to cut back those teachers.

Absolutely.

You need them.

Absolutely.

And you need those classes that are costing you money.

Absolutely. But this is all stuff that will go in. But yeah, we did just want to outline that at the start because I do think sometimes I find myself when I'm talking to studio owners about this and we're talking and then sort of halfway through I get there and I'm like, this person doesn't understand the difference between revenue and profit. And if you don't, like, Like I said, totally understandable.

No judgment.

You are— no judgment because you are by no means alone.

Yep, absolutely. All right, so what's your number one?

Okay, so the number one, and it's something that we always talk about, and I was having a chat with, uh, um, Amazing Studio Owner yesterday about it, that's sort of just new to our world and just starting out, um, and they didn't understand the difference between like student numbers and class placements.

Yep.

So the number one tip that we always talk about is the importance of increasing class placements in our studio because that is the easiest way. Not easiest, nothing's easy. I shouldn't use that word. So please like kick me under the table if I use the word easy again. But that is the most effective way, easiest way to increase our revenue. And when we talk about class placements, so like if Bec does jazz and ballet and Nathan's obviously a more advanced dancer, so he does jazz, ballet, hip hop and tap. Whoa. There's the two students doing six class placements between us, right? Yeah. And we want to be maximizing those class placements. We want our current students to be doing as many classes as possible because number one, it costs us less to convince Bec to pick up a hip-hop rather than just her ballet and jazz, than to go out into the streets of Penrith and market and get Susie to come and do just a jazz class or something.

Yes, and it's so good to know those numbers and to have goals around those numbers.

Absolutely. And that's what, like, something that we always focus on with anybody we work with is you can only measure— sorry, you can only improve what you measure. And with all of our Studio Growth Club members especially, we make sure that they're tracking those numbers every single week because Once we start to see patterns and trends, and once we start to understand, you know, we see a little bit of a spike in our class placements, like, ah, what have we done the last couple of weeks? Like, ah, well, I've really gone, I really listened to Bec this week and did regular posts about my preschool. And just not only our preschool, but our overall numbers, class placements have increased. Or on the flip side, sometimes we have a little bit of a drop. In class placements. I'm like, huh, that's a bit shit. But like, what's happened over the last couple of weeks? And we can be much more proactive. Yeah, too many studio owners we know get to the end of a term or the start of term 3 or the end of the year and they're like, oh my God, like, what's happened to all the students? I had like 200 students at the start of the year, now I've only got 160. What's happened? And by then it can be too late to start to make real inroads.

And something that we've talked to our Studio Growth Club members about is to know which class is after a certain— so say you've got a jazz class that's full with 20 kids, and then straight after it there's a tap class with 3 kids. So then emailing or picking up the phone, whatever you can do, that class and saying, hey guys, we've got tap on after this and we'll give you a free trial in that class. It's, it's simple. Yeah, you know, but that should be happening every single week in your studio.

Yeah, absolutely. That was one of the things that I challenged everybody to do because I wanted to get give people like quick wins to take away.

Yep.

Um, from the expo session, I'd love people listening, if you're listening to the podcast, to do it.

Yes.

Like, yeah, like Bec said, pick up the phone, like make a list of 20 parents. And it's something that the perfection streak in a dance studio owner, um, always thinks that, that fear of rejection and that, of course, if I pick up the phone and I make 20 phone calls and I don't get 20 sales, well then I'm a failure and then it was a complete waste of time.

Yep.

That's not how the marketing world works. Marketing is, um, all about numbers and it's all about probabilities and trying to do the best you can around that. So if you make 20 phone calls, the reality is you're going to be lucky to get 10 to pick up, guys.

Yep.

In 2026. And if you can convince 4 of those, or 3 or 4 of those, to do an extra class, that's a great conversion rate. And so too often, like I said, we think that 3 out of 20 is horrible and a failure, but we need to flip our thinking on it from a marketing perspective, huge win. And if you did that every couple of weeks, then you're going to make huge, huge and consistent improvements over time. I love that. I love that. Yeah, absolutely. And like something else I was talking about as well around, you know, it's exactly what you were talking about with the, like, you know, cutting tap or cutting, like, just like accountants that come in without much context in owning dance studios.

Right.

The reality is that a lot of these classes are running anyway. And whether to cut a class or not, it's a whole nother conversation. But we do want to try and fill it before we cut it. And that's what we see too many studio owners do, right? Because the reality is we're paying for that class to happen. And so all of the expenses are already sort of locked in, often for a term. And we say to studio owners, at the end of the term is a good time to sit and reflect on whether a class continues the following term. But what have you done to try and fill it in the meantime?

Yeah.

Have you given it a red-hot crack? Have you made those 20 phone calls? Yeah. Have you sent an SMS to all the students in that age group that come around that class to try and get them in? Have you sent out the cold email blast? Have you done everything you can? Not just one, one story or one post on Instagram that term. Have you done everything you can to try and to fill that class and increase your class placements.

Absolutely. I love that. What's number 2?

Well, so number 2 is, look, something that I like do see a lot, and it's something that I'm super—

it's a bit of a pet hate.

No, it's not a pet hate, it's just something that I get super passionate about. So I could, I could start waffling, so please pull me back if I do. Um, getting your price list right, and it's something that, like, again, I was talking with another person new to our world the other day, and if we don't have our price— no, let me— let's not be negative, let's be positive. So, um, one of our amazing members that, um, I went down and spent some time in their studio last year, and one thing that we really focused on is getting their price list right. And You know, they're still as amazing a dance teacher as they were 12 months ago. Their product and service is still as great as it was 12 months ago.

Yep.

We tweaked their price list to get rid of a lot of the multi— like, not— sorry, not get rid of, to make more sense of the multi-class discounts, to eliminate sibling discounts. To do a whole bunch of things, and revenue has gone from $55,000 for a term to $115,000. Whoa. Yeah. So we're talking about a studio here that's about the 200 to 230 student mark.

Yeah.

So this isn't like a 700, 800 student size studio. This is a great size studio that's doing really well. And but like I said, it's those sort of numbers. And I think, like I said, it's, it's my something that I'm so passionate about studio owners getting right is number one, realizing just how much money they're leaving on the table with their discounting structures. And then number two, doing something about it.

Well, you had this chat with me.

I did. For a while.

It was maybe 5 years ago.

Yeah.

I would say. And look, it's really hard to change.

It is.

And it's— and you have in your head that if you change your pricing structure, everyone's going to complain and you're going to lose kids. So that's the biggest fear, right? And I had that fear. And then also, you know, it's— you think that you're giving value, but you're not. Like, that, that was my thought. Like, oh, I'm giving value by doing it that way. Now that I've simplified it, well, I've put my prices up a lot, as you know, and not one single person complained. And now that I've simplified it, um, people aren't getting confused by it. It is a total game changer. But it took, like everything, Nath, it took me a long time to come to that decision.

Absolutely. And I know that there's going to be people sitting there listening to this podcast as you're driving or walking the dog or whatever you're doing. And you'll be thinking of 100 or 10 objections already about why you couldn't do away with sibling discounts and why your discounting structure and multi club, why you've got 10 objections for me right off the bat. And believe me, I've heard them all like 100 times. And when we are able to coach studio owners around those objections, because like I said, we've heard them all, guys, and we can tell you why, like how to get around them. Every single person that we've coached to the other side has always like with a laugh sit on the other side. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner.

Yes. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. It's been a game changer. And I think it's that That thing that, you know, we, we like, like you just said, we worry that some, I don't know if it's coming across greedy, but the reality is when we simplify and we streamline our, our price list and we get it right, it actually allows us to charge more over time because it's that notion of a confused mind never buys. And if we've got 10% off for, um, for this and 20% off for that. And then there's the 20% multi-sibling discount. People don't do maths. Even I don't do that maths, and I love maths, right? And people just opt out. And so they don't end up spending as much as they could in your business for the incredible product and classes that you're offering because you haven't made it easy for them to say yes. And that's absolute key. Thing that we need to do about your price list.

Yep.

Like, do you still have multi-class discounts in your studio, Bec?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Everyone does. Yes, without a doubt.

But it's very simple now because it used to be our class, hour and a half class, half hour class, then discount for this, and then add-on fees, and then, oh yeah, craziness.

Exactly. And that's the thing, like, it's craziness.

Yeah, now that I look at it, I'm like So crazy. Yeah, the things that we did and also took up so much admin time. That's the biggest one.

Yep.

You know, because you have to individually go into every single person and correct all of their stuff. Whereas when you got me to change to 45-minute classes, which I was totally against— yep, best decision of my life doing that.

Yep.

Um, and then just do the very simple, you know, the more classes you do, the cheaper it is to do per class.

Yeah, absolutely crazy. Yeah, like absolute game changer. And like I said, it would be, you would blow your mind how much money you're leaving on the table. So like Jack Rabbit used to do this for us and this was even like when, so like when I put our price list together, so like believe it or not, I would like build a massive spreadsheet projection and this. Yeah, I know. And so like whenever we did our price increases, so we would basically go in a cadence of every 2 years. So we didn't want to feel like we were going up every year, which I know some people do. That's okay. But we would put up enough in 2 years to cover us for that. And that's how we sort of always did it. But before we publish that price list, I would know, I would run like, and this took me a long time to do, guys. And it's something that I give to our Studio Growth Club members. And it's the exact thing that you ran for PAUSE. By knowing that, like, all right, if all of our students from, let's say, 2024 is what we did last year, from 2024 were to enroll in the exact same number of classes next year, we put in this year's price, price list, and we put in what we would like to make next year's price list. And I would run that every single time we did a price list, and then we get a little projection. Of exactly how much more revenue we're going to bring in. And like, that amount is absolutely bonkers, guys.

Oh, it's fun to do because you can, you can be a bit silly with it too and go, okay, but like, it is interesting to go, okay, if I put my one class a week up to $25, which is something that I did, um, and then severely discounted my second class, I want to put that in because I wanted people to do two classes. Then it's just such a game changer.

It allows you to test a bunch of different scenarios.

Exactly.

And we would do that and then make it really simple. So we had, and this is what I believe Paul's has got now, but there's no mention of any percentages anywhere on your price list. It is one class equals 25, two class equals this, three class equals that, etc. I think we're actually getting ahead of ourselves because I think we do talk about some timetable stuff a little bit later and simplifying that. But, um, or maybe, maybe not. Maybe that's not— no, maybe that's not coming up. So let's keep diving into it.

Okay.

Um, but yeah, if it's that, that whole notion of like 1 class, 2 class, 3 class, and there's no mention of percentages because people don't want to do that. No, there's no multi-sibling discounts. So people don't have to think, oh well, if Susie's going to do 2 classes and, and Jamie's going to do 4 classes, well then I've got 2 plus, then I've got to take the 30% and that. It's just like, right, 2 classes for $42, 4 classes for $68. Done. $42 plus $68, done. That's how much I've got to, like, that's what people want to do. If you make it easy for them, then you're more likely to get people signing up for more classes and getting your revenue in. And look, we're talking about like ways to get more money in your studio now. And like, this is just one for me to sort of like throw out there before we disappear into the ether onto the next little point. But mid-year price rise for term 3 is something that I'm not 100% against. I know one of our members does it and it's something that like could like, people are like, ooh, like I could understand why you might worry about this. But if you maybe haven't put your prices up in a couple of years or things like that, thinking about putting up prices mid-year, the thing that I like about it is It's not when people are deciding, like end of year and enrolling for 2027 will be a big decision about what classes do I do? What do I— should I go and pick up that fourth class? Actually, it's actually costing more as well. So no, I won't do that. But if it's already the price list, if you've done your price rise now in term 3, are you going to have a couple of drops maybe? but you're also going to increase your revenue significantly. And then you don't have to do it at the end of the year. So you're more likely to be able to upsell people because they're not having to worry about that price rise.

Because they're already committed.

Because they're already—

yeah, yeah, I love it.

They already know. And so it's not that double whammy at the end of the year. It means that you'd change and like you'd always do it mid-year type thing.

Yeah.

Whether you did it every year or every 2 years like we did. But I do think it's something to think about. And then the last thing with price list. Like I said, I'm sorry guys, I could go on absolutely all day about these, but it's got to pass the random guy test. Yeah, it's got to pass the random guy and the 30-second test. So if you've got a brother, an uncle, or something like that, that maybe they have kids, maybe they don't, but you've got to give them the price list and a scenario. Hey, I've got two girls. Sassy and Gigi. Gigi's going to do 4 classes. Sassy's going to do 2 classes. How much is it going to cost me a week? If they can't give you an answer in 30 to 60 seconds, your price list is too complicated. You need to look at it.

I love it.

Yeah, full stop.

Yep, yep, absolutely.

Amazing.

You're incredible, guys. Bec here. Um, this podcast went for a very long time, so we decided to break it into 2 pieces. Um, so make sure that you're here next week for the second half. 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.