Solos + Private Lessons - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

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.

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This is the Dance Principles United podcast. Hey, friends, and welcome to the Dance Principles United podc. Beck, my lovely, lovely friend. How you doing today?

I'm super amazing. Always excited to chat with you and do all the things. It's been an awesome week.

Amazing. What's been going on? Tell me all the things about your week. I've hardly chatted to you this week. It's been crazy.

I know Expo is crazy. I went to Aunt Juliet on the weekend, and I'm going to claim it and say that I think it was the best musical I've ever been to in my whole life.

Big call.

I know. I absolutely loved it, though. And the friends that I went with, we just knew all the music, so we were singing along in the audience, and I just felt like it was such a fun, amazing show.

Absolutely. I love that. Like, yes, the vibes. Right. And sometimes it affects, like, who you go with, what kind of mood you're in when you go to a show. Like, all of those things come into play. Right. But, oh, my God, I loved it, too.

Yeah. So good. What's happening with you?

Tell me all the things counting down to Expo. We had a big weekend. We've had nice 40th. All the stuff going on. It's been crazy, but fun. It's always good to, like, be busy and crazy. I get bored if I'm not busy.

Yeah, absolutely. I would invent things to do. And in fact, I do invent things.

To do, Amanda, like, like your beautiful new artwork setup that you've got going on behind you. If you're watching us on YouTub, be able to see that. Not many people watch us on YouTube. We have, like, a very small number of friends that watch us on YouTube. But you'll be able to see Beck's lovely new painting. If you want to jump over, I.

Can see my Easter hat. I do love doing a good Easter hat for the hat parade.

Amanda, oh, my God. I can't believe you do that.

I love it.

Oh, my God. I know you've told me this before, and I couldn't think of anything I'd like to do less than make an Easter hat.

I. I really get a lot out of it. I really enjoy it.

So if you want to jump over to YouTube, please make sure you do. If you could press subscribe so that we have more than three followers on YouTube, we would so appreciate that. And you can see Beck's amazing Easter hat that she has created for. Is it Phoenix's Easter hat?

It is Phoenix's Easter hat. Wonka theme I love. Really cool though. Amanda, I was trying to SJC applicant this week because you're doing applications for sjc and she was saying, oh, my gosh, I feel like I already know you because I listen to your podcast so much. Such a lovely moment because I think sometimes we record this and we're like, are people actually listening? But they really are. They're out there.

They are. We look at the numbers and people are definitely listening.

So it's crazy.

Thanks to all of you who are listening. That's always lovely. Nice to hear that. When it's. You're chatting to someone we've never met before and they're like, oh, yeah, I listen to you all the time.

Yeah, it's. It's really good. She's coming to expo too, so it'd be awesome.

Amazing. Amazing. Well, we are here not to talk about Wonka themed Easter hats, although it is an incredible creation. But we are here to talk about solos. We had a really interesting conversation. We had our end of month Q A chat with our studio growth club members yesterday, and one of the questions that came up was about pricing for solos. And it just kind of started an interesting conversation about solos because love them, Hate them. We all have real big opinions on solos, right? And it's just an interesting thing. So I would love to know, do you love doing solos? Do you hate them? Do you have a. Like, tell me all the things about how you feel about solos, Becky.

Love it. Always have done it at my studio. Did them when I was little and absolutely love it. I love the one on one with kids. I love how much it improves them. I love that you can really, like, just get into their heads and really help encourage them in that space individually. And I think it makes such a difference to them. So I'm all about it. There are things I hate about it. Absolutely.

What do you hate?

Well, I hate just being completely honest as I am. I hate that we teach kids stuff in solos that they will never, ever learn on contract. Actually, I was talking to Karen Kulik about this yesterday and it's interesting though, because in. On the flip side of that, it does teach them to work hard. Like, you know, Baby's just started solos a couple of years ago and she's working so hard on her tricks and on all the things. And so it does teach him a good work ethic, but absolutely never going to use any of those tricks on contract ever. And that's, that's the part of hate.

She'S not going to do for days. Into a barani or fue into an aerial on a contract or as a backup dancer or in chorus.

I don't think she will. No. Unless she's a prima ballerina in a ballet company, she will never use for days.

The aerial at the end of the fore though, probably not needed.

And that's, that's annoying for me as a studio owner. But at the same time, what do you do?

Absolutely. And the kids love it. Look, they love to throw those tricks and do those amazing things. Yeah, it's such a hard thing. Like I loved as a teacher teaching solos.

Yeah.

For those same reasons you love the connection you love, you know, having that like closer relationship with the student and being part of their journey. As they go through and start doing, you know, they start by being really nervous at comps and they get better and better and all of a sudden, you know, they're winning and they move up from the restricted to the open section and they're winning championships or whatever that is. Not that they're called championships anymore, but you know what I mean, that was back in my day. Now they're winning the titles etc. Yes. But I love teaching solos in our studios. As a studio manager and as a business person, they don't make a lot of sense financially of course. However, they do serve as a something to keep your high level clients happy and sometimes you need to do that, right?

Yeah, absolutely. They also make, I believe, the standard of your troops higher because you Absolutely. Higher level kids that can do better things, which can be a draw card as well. I also think if you're smart about the way you do them, you can make good money off them. And I know you talk about this all the time, but putting them in time slots where you wouldn't have classes.

Absolutely, yes.

So we do. Well, privates are starting at my studio from two o' clock on a Wednesday because it's a bit of a sport day out here. So some of our kids don't do sport and do privates instead. And then every day we have all four studios with a 3pm and a 3:30pm private. And then pretty much from 7pm when one of our studios starts to be free because all the little people have gone home, we have privates all the way through. So it's kind of using your studio space when classes aren't on that I think you can make money off at. The other thing we do is we'll have our circus and acro privates in the back of our big room. Because for an acro private, you just need a long mat run. That's it. And for a circus private, you see a little square. So we'll have a class going on with privates in the background.

I find that really interesting because that never occurred to me to do, I guess. But it's no different to, like, how they run gymnastics or something, right? Like, everyone's just on an open floor and they're listening to their coach separately. And it works really well for gymnastics, which in reality, acro circuit, it's not that different if you don't need the music playing and you're just working on technique, style, skills.

Yep. Even our techniques would do the same thing, Amanda. So a turn private or a flexibility private, just do it in the back of our big room. I mean, we do have a big space, but still, no one's ever questioned it. No parents ever. I love that, being concerned about it. Yeah.

It's interesting. I think sometimes we're all a little. I don't know if entitled's the right word or maybe not the right word, but we're a bit spoiled for choice. Right. In Australia especially, I think if you're listening to us in from Australia, like, we have big spaces and, you know, most of us have quite big studios, and they're all, you know, decked out with all the facilities and all the things. But the reality around the world is, is that there's lots of people that are training to do things, whether it's dance, whether it's gymnastics on in much smaller spaces without all the facilities. And a great teacher and a great student can work together regardless of the space sometimes.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think. Yeah. I think one of the questions that came up in our SDC call, Amanda, was, would I keep doing privates? Would I not have privates in my studio if I chose to now, because it's such a big part of our school, it's. It's exploded. And I. I just said to our community, don't do them if you don't want to put the hard yards into it, and.

Absolutely.

Got to realize how high the standard is now. The standard is insane. Like, absolutely. Oh, my gosh. But I. I love it. Like, I love seeing those amazing kids and I love watching them, and I love all the things I'm all about it. And I love seeing them, you know, so highly trained. And I know, like Chelsea from your studio, she is just so incredible and beautiful to watch. And like, I love those kids. I love watching them. But you've got to realize that it takes a lot of hard work to get those kids to that standard and you've got to be committed to that because what you don't want is your solo kids going in and just losing, losing, losing, losing, losing all the time. Because that actually has the opposite effect. It. It discourages them, it makes them unhappy. It's all the horrible things.

Absolutely. And I think that's a really, like, big key. If you aren't familiar with the comp world at the moment and it's been a while since you've been to some solo comps, you know, before you start putting kids into, like, I would really recommend going down and having a look because, you know, that's what. We were talking to a few members who. They haven't really done many solos. It's been a while since they've been to those comps. And I think it's important because I do think you do run the risk of losing kids to other studios, for example, if they're not improving. They don't have to be. They don't have to get first at every Stepford. But I do think they can't be the kid that's, you know, it keeps losing because that's not a good look for your brand.

Yeah. And like, you can try to find comps that aren't so high end. Obviously there's comps that are really, really high end. But even the not so high end comps now, the standards getting crazy, like even that it's. Yeah, it is next level, definitely. And it's not getting any easier, especially with social media and stuff. So just make sure you're willing to commit and you've got the staff to do it. I think that's hard as well because there's another member I was talking to and she was like, yes, but I just end up doing it all because I know no one's going to teach it like me. And don't do that. That just is like torture, Right? Absolute.

It's got to be a lot. So, yeah, look, it's an interesting conversation because I think it's so much fun and I like, you know, we always had lots of solos. They're a lot of work, but they also. The teachers love them, the kids love them. Excuse me. And I think that's really important because that's part of the reason why they. Yes, financially, they might not do as well as a class. However, you know, we are all here because we love dance as well. There's got to be a good balance of things. Always.

Yes.

So I guess that kind of takes us to the conversation that we wanted to have, which was, you know, okay, we know that they're not going to be as profitable as a class of 25 junior hip hops. There's just no way that's ever gonna happen. However, we can work on ways to make them more profitable or as much as we can. So I think that that's, you know, worth a discussion and also I guess setting good boundaries in place as well, because I think that's a big part of solos as well is those boundaries around and expectations with it all. So I'd love to hear about how many solos you have at pause. I don't know if I'm scared to hear the answer. Am I scared to hear the answer?

Probably. I just counted it before we started. Say we've got 95 solos at pause.

Oh, wait, half hour solos?

Yeah.

95 a week. Yeah.

Isn't that crazy? I actually nearly died when I added that up.

But anyway, that's crazy. And that's. Is that a mix between circus acro dance privates? Some are learning choreography and doing comps, but some are just doing technique based ones. Is that it's a combo of everything, correct? Yes.

And some, like there'd be a handful who do an acro and a dance private, obviously, so. But yeah, it's pretty insane when you look at those numbers. It's such a big. It's such a big thing in our school. It's huge.

Yes. Yeah.

And I guess it has that follow on effect as well that kids and parents are watching the kids that are doing the solo. Seeing them get so much better and then they want their kid to do a solo. It's kind of that effect as well.

Absolutely, absolutely. So do you want to talk about how you price them and how you package it? Because I know you've made a change this year, right?

Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting to talk about the change that we did make. So we used to price it per. As per the teacher they were having. And if they had one teacher to be less and then another teacher would be more. And that was a nightmare, admin wise. Absolute nightmare. And so now we just make. Well, last year we actually made everyone just the same, which was $55 for half an hour. And then this year we put it up $10 to 65 for half an hour. And, and the reason that we did that is because we feel that. Felt that they needed an extra technique and acro class. So we just put an extra like advanced technique in accurate. It's not really advanced, it's just for anyone who does a private and they all go in there together. But that class is massive, as you can imagine. I mean we do have a really big room, but that class is huge. Crazy huge.

So it's basically like an exclusive class for soloists that they work on acro and technique. It's just. Is it one hour a week or is it two hours a week or what is it so.

Well, we do 45 minute classes, so it's 45 minutes for our 8 and unders and then 9 and over is an hour and a half.

Okay. So you basically run those two sort of like lessons exclusive to them and they're basically paying for that by the fact that you put the solo prices up is basically how they're paying for that. So it's $10 a week. Basically they're paying for that class. Which is awesome because it means that if you had like an unlimited page package, let's say for. Because you do have a ceiling on your classes, don't you? So otherwise you would just add an extra technique class and they not be charged for that. So it's a much smarter way to do it, right, that they're actually paying $10 additionally on that cl. On the solo. I know you also wanted to try and decrease how many people were doing solo. So you wanted to put the price up because. Not, you know, but just you wanted to make it harder for people to do it. I did, yeah.

I literally thought that would be the case and it the opposite. We still have a massive, massive wait list for privates. Like it's, it's crazy. It's abs. Yeah, I, I honestly thought. And sometimes we ever think that, right.

We'Re like, oh, I can't put the.

Classes up $2 because people will pull out. But I think if you, if you're really giving people something amazing, then they won't.

Yeah. So could I ask about your teachers? Because that was something that came up. Are your teachers paid the same amount per teach solo lessons?

Yeah. Interesting. They generally are. But I did have a new teacher come in last week and they said to me that they charge extra for solos now they're an acro teacher. And to be completely honest, I needed that teacher desperately and said, that's fine, but it's interesting because that's come up a lot lately, right? That has come up a lot lately.

Yeah. And I find that an interesting conversation. Yeah. I understand. If they're a guest teacher coming in just to choreograph a routine for two hours, no problems. Totally understand that. No issue. But if they're having a weekly private with these kids and they're, you know, just adding on, as you do with a normal class week to week onto their routine, I don't think that they should be paid any extra. It's the same. Yes. Yes. Okay. Their work might be a little bit more advanced, and you might be teaching it a little bit more quickly than what you're teaching to an eight and under jazz troop, because you've got to go slowly with the choreography for an 8 and under jazz troop. However you're adding on each week you're doing prep before the class, I think it should be the same. Also, as studio owners, we're getting paid less for that class, so it doesn't make sense to then pay the teacher more. That doesn't make any sense.

No, no. And look, I would. Like I said I would not normally do it, except I was just like, I need this. And in fairness, this teacher is phenomenal. Like, so good.

There's always exceptions to every rule. Right.

100, and it's two solos and it's an extra $10 a week or whatever.

And I'm like, yeah, it wasn't an easy.

It's so not worth it. But I would. Yeah. If you have the choice to question that, I feel like you really could question it. And I'm gonna. I'm definitely gonna question it as I get to know this staff member a bit better and see if I can, you know, muck around with it a bit and sort of see where they're coming from. But it's the reasoning behind it. Yes, the reasoning behind it is the interesting part and where they got that from.

Yeah. Okay, that's interesting. So I'd love to tell you about my ideas for packaging, which we kind of threw out yesterday in the SGC call. And because I think, you know, as we talked about, you're kind of like packaging with a technique class, which I think totally works. I think if there's ways you can package things, I think I'm all about it. Like, the better, the more ways you can package things. So a few things that we had, like, I tossed around to some other studio owners, a few ideas that I had at my studio, and to be honest, I never actually went through with any of these ideas, because it was as towards the end. So these are just. No, I'm just spitballing ideas that other studio owners might enjoy. Is that same kind of idea of charging a little bit more for solos, but it including some group classes. So same as you, right? One of the ideas that Ali had, who is the amazing woman who has bought my studio and she did this in America, a lot of was she calls them like stage readiness classes. And basically in a stage readiness class or a performance practice class or, you know, something like that, it was groups of soloists coming together, you know, whether you put however many you put in there that are all kind of the same age or whatever. And they come together in the studio and they run their routines in front of each other. So for example, especially if you like get a lot of guest choreographers or you do your solos like that in big chunks, they come in, you know, they're there for the hour or whatever, and they each get to run their routines, you know, two or three times. The teacher gives a little bit of feedback, then they sit down and have a drink while the next kid's getting up to run theirs. They get to practice performing in front of an audience, being their peers. They get to be inspired by each other. I was like, you know, obviously there's a bit of sitting down in that class, but if it's a time slot that they're all there and they get to use the studio, it's because the reality is, right, like if they're running high level routines, they can't do it full out over and over and over again. There is. Most kids cannot do that. There's downtime.

Yeah, of course.

I like. I like that idea. I thought that's an interesting idea as a way to bundle a class. Right.

And do they chart? Is it just like a one off once a term or something like that? Or is it.

She was talking about it as a weekly class, you know, that they come in at whatever time and they run it as a weekly class. And I was like, no different to how you're running a technique, I guess.

Yeah, I love it.

That's same kind of idea. I like that idea. The other thing that I have helped some studio owners implement is a choreography fee or a new routine fee. So on top of their weekly lessons at X amount of dollars per week or whatever, there's a fee of whatever it is, $150, $200 every time they start a new routine. And bundling that, bundling that being for. Okay, so number one it's to stop them doing too many routines and asking for too many routines. Because we actually know that sometimes the technique work is more important than the choreography. So that being step one. But also so to try and deter them just going, I want a new routine. I want a new routine. I want a new routine every two seconds. But having that and also including. What does it include like as a bundle? It includes obviously starting the routine, music selection, music editing, sending the music, a 15 minute meeting with the parent to go through costume design, you know, like and bundling all of those things together. Because it's admin work every time you start a new routine. Right. There's absolute admin work involved in it. So charging for that as well. I think that could be a great way if you don't want to put the prices of your solos up. But you know, need some extra money for the admin portion of it.

So smart, so smart. I love that. I know yesterday as well we were talking about people doing solo lessons in the school holidays as an extra money maker too and putting out technique lessons or maybe, you know, doing it just has to be half hour lessons. But I think that's a great thing to do. I used to do it every school holidays back in the day. Amanda. And you make great money if you, if you're willing to work an eight hour day and you're charging $50 for half an hour, like it's, it's good money.

Absolutely. I know a lot of our Studio Growth club members are doing that themselves these holidays, you know, and totally. So like my daughters, I couldn't fit in a weekly private for all three of them at the moment. They've all asked, but there's just no way. I have. The other day as we. You mentioned you saw my timetable and there's just no way I could add that in. Especially when I know that'd be funny. Weird times.

This is not good enough.

But because there'd be odd times, it doesn't actually like go back to back with their classes. I just can't do it. However, I'm all about them having a holiday technique private.

Yeah.

And I'd be the first one to sign up to that as are a lot of other mums. Because number one, they're bored in the holidays. I would love them to have a bit of one on one attention. I think especially we talked to our Studio Growth club members about doing like skill based ones. You know, Gigi, my nine year old is really close to her back handspring and that's all she wants to be able to nail so, you know, a back handspring private for her so that she can just work on that skill for half an hour with the teacher. She'd be. She'd be close enough that she'd probably get it in half an hour in a one on one environment. Like how perfect's that? I'd be paying for that. No problems.

Oh, and heaps of them would even just to get stretching techniques and there'd be so many things that people would love to have and I think, yeah, even a confidence private. Like there's so much you could do.

That's a good name. Yeah, I like when they've got great names because I feel like, especially if they're not normal soloists, I feel like sometimes they don't know what to expect in a solo. So benefit driving it. Like it's a confidence private, it's a flexibility private, it's a turns private, it's a acro like so that they know the outcomes. I think that's really important.

Yeah, absolutely. And if you can't do it yourself, get someone in, I guess. But make sure that you're still making great money off it.

Absolutely. That's important. You got to do that. Like if you go into the effort, you need to make sure it works for you.

Yep, yep. I love all those ideas. So cool.

So, yeah, look, hopefully that's some ideas for solos for everybody. Let us know if this hit with you, let us know if you have any other ideas. I'm always interested how other people run their solo lessons because there's so many ways to do it and what works for one studio might not work for another and so on. But I think it's always good to sit back and reflect on how you're currently doing it and what can you change to make it better. I think that's a really great idea. If you haven't, if you haven't looked at it recently, I would highly recommend stepping back and having a look at how you can improve it now, you know, prepping for next year.

Yep, absolutely. Well, hopefully we've inspired you guys today. It's always an interesting conversation. It was certainly interesting yesterday and yeah, we hope you guys have the most amazing week. Don't forget, Expo is coming up so soon. I'm so excited. So if you haven't grabbed your ticket, they're nearly sold out, I think. But make sure you do grab them because it is going to be amazing.

Can't wait to see you then.