The Power of Studio Values

Hello, friends, I'm Amanda Barr. And I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan. And welcome to Dance Principles United, the podcast. Together, we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio. Join us as we talk everything from marketing systems, studio culture, motherhood, life and everything in between. This is the Dance Principles United podcast. Hey friends, and welcome to the Dance Principles United Podcast. Nathan, I are joining today and we are so excited to chat about values today. Right, Nath?

Absolutely. It's something that we, look, we get asked about a lot and I think it's something that's super important and as we're going to talk about today, I think makes so much of what we do in our studio so much easier if we have those strong values that not only, like I said, help us, but help help our staff and to be honest, our families and our students as well, I think.

Absolutely, absolutely. But before we get into all of that, you know, what is going on for you? What's been happening? How's your week been? You've done one on ones with Studio Growth Club members this week. Has it been a great week?

Absolutely. We always love one on one weeks is where we get to jump on and really get into, I guess like we call them needle moving issues with our studio owners as part of sgc. We get to jump on those one on one coaching calls with all of our members between me, you and Beck and absolutely love jumping into those, those calls. We've been chatting numbers. Was chatting like had some great numbers conversations following on from talking all things money matters last month and some, some studio owners really starting to deep dive into the numbers of their business and starting to use them to make really good and informed decisions. They're going to help grow their studios.

Yes. So, so good. I love one on one week. It's been a great week. We're also prepping for our Studio Growth Club retreat up in the beautiful noosa.

So excited.

10 days away.

Yes. We start. Yeah, start the. Oh, look, I'm going to get it wrong. But very, very soon. Let's be honest.

We are so excited to have all of our members up there and have two and a half days of incredible learning. So, so excited for that. Which will be absolutely incredible.

Yeah. So important for. Oops, sorry to cut you off. But so important for studio owners to step away from the studio.

Absolutely. I think that's so important because I think sometimes, you know, we all get in the weeds. Right? Like we absolutely all get in the weeds and sometimes just removing yourself gives you all those great ideas and Sparks, inspiration and all of those things.

Absolutely, absolutely. So, so important. So, yeah, we can't wait to get up there and welcome our Studio Growth Club members to the Sunny, Sunny Noosa.

So good. I was about to say before Bec, still living her best life, absolutely. Loving her time in Europe. She's on a cruise in Europe at the moment with her mum and her daughter. Super jealous. But that's all the things that are happening with us at the moment. So let's get into values. This question came to us from one of our listeners. Is that right, Nate?

Yeah, absolutely. And if you do have questions or things that you'd like to hear about on the podcast, please do drop us a dm because it's quite often, like, that's one thing we always say in all of our groups and everybody that we chat to, that so many of us have the same questions and challenges as studio owners. Right. So if you, if you've got something, you think, oh, I'd really love to hear more about that. It's almost certainly something that others are going through and we've. It's something that we've probably gone through. So we'd love to chat about and share some of our wisdom and knowledge on it.

Absolutely. So tell me, what was the question that came in? Who was it from? Let's get stuck into it.

Yeah, absolutely. So from one of our amazing studio owners, Phoenix Studios, asking about studio values. It was something that we. That we touched on going back quite a few podcasts now, I think when we chatted with the amazing Morgan from Monsters of Dance. So I might link that one in the show notes if that's something you want to touch on as well. But just like asking, like, r. Studio values important, what are the benefits of having them and, you know, what can they look like? And then most importantly, how do you even come up with them? Right. And like, yeah, like I said, like, we did jump on with. With Morgan. I'll definitely link that in the show notes if you want to go back and listen to that one as well, because we know that having strong studio values really helped Morgan grow Monsters of Dance into the absolute powerhouse in the industry that it is today.

Absolutely. So we're talking about values and we're going to both talk about our opinions on them. Is that where we're starting, Nath? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, absolutely. And look, I think people get, you know, I spoke to someone about it the other day and I think sometimes people get too in their head about values. I've got to be honest I think that people overthink it, you know, want it to be this perfect document to use these words and it be this like, I don't know, magical unicorn of a thing. And I think that that can sometimes be an issue, right, because, you know, words are great, but like, sometimes words are just words. And I have seen studios in the past and businesses, you know, write this like big, flowery long sentence or, you know, document or have these like empowerment words, but they're not actually putting them into their everyday studio culture. And what's the point of having this document if you're not actually using it? Right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think even the word document is the wrong way to think about it because I don't think it should be a big, you know, be a two, three page document and something that I always talk to people about, something that I definitely learned coming into work for, with, for you. I'm not sure if what's, what's the right way, what right word to use there for me. So coming and working for you. Amazing, Amazing life is the importance of simplifying things, especially when it comes to using our words. I do like to write. Sometimes I get a little bit carried away and sometimes get a bit word salady, word vomiting even. And sometimes I use too many words. And I think the importance of keeping things like this, I think keeping it simple is what can make your studio values even more powerful. The more complexity we add to these things, the harder it actually is to implement them and to, like you said, live them in our, in our day to day studio lives.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think word salad is exactly the problem that I have when people just put a whole heap of flowery words into a bowl and stir them all up like a salad. And it's just all these words that mean nothing now. I think the purpose of values needs to be number one, really short and sharp. And it just has to be something that is all encompassing for your studio and it doesn't have to be this incredible document, but it does have to be something, something that is carried through in a feeling. I think that's the most important thing around that. Right. But let's talk about what we used to do at our studio. Nath, do you want to kind of go through how we kind of came up with ours?

Yeah, absolutely. So what we felt was important was that the staff actually had buy in to it because it wasn't just something for, like you said, it wasn't just something for me and you to write and stick up on the wall and Think sweet. Done. Right. It was. Tick it off. It was something that we wanted us to, obviously, to live by. It was something that we wanted our staff to embody in all of their interactions with, with their students and families at the studio. So what we did is the sort of. The first time that we got them together, we would have. Each year, at the start of each year, we would have staff training. Super, super important. You'll hear Beck talk about that in many, many podcast episodes. But a part of that staff training at the start of each year was to revisit our studio values. But the first time we put them together, we, you know, broke our staff off into groups and just got them to start brainstorming and got them to start writing down what they started by dot pointing, then started to get them to try and put it into a sentence. Yeah, it was something that was, I think it was like a couple of hour exercise at the start. But the like we keep talking about, it's actually a lot harder than you think to. To keep it brief. It's actually a lot easier to write the big word, salary, mission statement or the values, but to get everybody's amazing opinions and then get that down into.

A couple of sentences and something that's concise.

Yes. Is actually the bit that is a little bit tricky. So that's all we did. We broke off into groups, we got the amazing. Our amazing team to talk about what was important to them, brainstorm what was important to them, what they felt was special about the studio. And then from there, we all came back together and got our studio values. And then, like we said, we would get together at the start of every year in that meeting and read them back out. Are we living by them? Yep. Are we. Are they still relevant? Is this something. Is there anything we want to change in here? Because that's super important as well. We are in a pretty rapidly changing world, so it is important to go back and. And revisit them.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think that's really important that we need to always be revisiting them. Do you want to chat about, like, what ours ended up being?

Absolutely. I did go back on and find it. So what we came down is we managed to get ours down into two sentences. So the studio values that we had at Dance Sensations and from memory, I don't know that it changed too much over the years, like maybe word, a word here or there or just making sure, but because it was so concise, I don't think we needed to change it up that much. So the Dance Sensations values were. At Dance Sensations, we provide a special place where students feel safe and supported. This gives them the opportunity to spark a passion for dance and build lifelong memories and friendships.

Okay, awesome. So you know how I like to be honest, like, you know, we're talking about making sure it's not a word salad. What that ends up to me talking about and when I'm firing it quickly to the staff was we're making memories for kids and it's all inclusive and safe space. That was where I kind of came back to. That was always. Everything that we decided to do was around that. Right, Nath?

Oh, 100%. And then it allows you to. What I loved about it because again, like what I definitely learned from you was coming from, you know, I was coming. I used to work in finance, which is obviously a lot of policies and regulations on those sorts of things. And I also worked as a school teacher in those government industries, which is we don't even need to talk about policies and procedures in those sort of places. So I thought that workplaces meant we need lots of policies and procedures in big, long, triplicate, blah, blah. But that's not the case because when you have those small businesses, not for small businesses and not. But to be honest, not for efficient businesses either. Because you can pretty much deal with any situation or challenge that arise. If you have good, strong, concise values, you can attack any challenge by bringing it back to those values. So, like one thing that always comes up and it's, look, it's a, like it's always a hot topic. Is it our, our place to even step in? But what happens if, with social media, if there's some, some sort of cyber bullying or disagreements going on between team members from the studio on social media.

By team members, you mean students.

Yeah, sorry, students. Yeah, sorry, students on social media. Like I said, I know that. Is it our place, is it not? But sometimes we do need to. I've seen studios, unfortunately, and you might be listening to this and thinking, oh, this is me. But you know, they think that they've got to have these big, long, multi page social media policies. The problem with having social media policies in 2024 is that you'd literally need to change them every second day with how quickly the social media landscape changes. Right. But if there is an issue with that and we think that there's a student or a couple of students that might be in the wrong, we can just bring it back. Hey. Our main value here at Dance Sensations is that students feel safe and Supported. Your actions there meant that little Susie didn't feel safe and supported. Like, that's it.

Absolutely. And I think that's really, really clever because too many words can get you in trouble. If you had a social media policy, for example, that's like, not, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, you can do this, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, maybe there's a loophole in it. Maybe there's something you've missed. You didn't write that, you know, and they're like, oh, but I. I didn't do that. Whereas if it's like, hey, our goal is to make sure everyone feels safe and secure, then that can be very, very clear and it doesn't have to be so, like. And I think that's a really important thing inside our businesses, and I think that with everything.

Yeah, without a doubt. Like we said, especially in social media, like, you know, TikTok exploded onto the scene. It was a couple of years ago now, I know. But if you've got a slight lag and don't get within two or three weeks to update this big, long social media policy and the new platform's there and all the kids are on it. Well, you didn't say, I can't do it on TikTok.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It just causes, like, all these little, like, gray areas, Right?

Yes. And social media is definitely not the only place for it.

No, it's just. It's anything. Absolutely not. And I think by having, you know, these great values that your whole staff live by, you know, it is so easy to, you know, discuss any issues and also make decisions. So let's talk about issues. We talked about the social media. Other issues we can talk about, you know, that might arise in our studio, you know, might be something like, you know, the child not being given, you know, not being put on stage for the routine or something like that, being pulled off because, you know, they were.

Away for three weeks.

Yeah, whatever. Like, whatever that was. Right. That they're not in part of the routine. Well, to me, that comes back to a value. Yeah. And my values were making sure that they're creating incredible memories. Yeah. It being safe and inclusive. And to me, that word inclusive doesn't include that child off stage because they went on a family vacation. That's not inclusive to them. So it kind of comes back to all of those kind of things and it makes it really easy to make decisions and also, like, you know, chat to your staff about how that works. Look, and that's our, that was our values. Please don't get me wrong, any values that you want are great. If your value is we want to create elite high level dancers that are ready for the industry, awesome. That's such a great value. That's your choice of value. And if that's the case, then yes, pulling that kid off stage because they missed three weeks because they're on a family vacation absolutely aligns with that value. But it just depends what the values are to you, right?

Without a doubt. Like I said, it's just so everybody's out there building the studio of their dreams and everybody's is different. And so, yeah, one studio's values are going to be very different and that's okay. But just making sure that you're clear with it just gives you that framework. Having strong studio values gives you that framework for making the best decisions in all aspects of your business.

Absolutely. We chatted about this a lot for concert yesterday in one of our calls, one of our group calls yesterday, and you know, it was a really interesting conversation we had because one of the studio owners was chatting about how does she choose the perfect concert venue. Right. And so you might think concert venue has nothing to do with values, but when we pulled it back to it, it totally did. Right. She was talking about, you know, one venue had an awesome stage and an awesome lighting set up and it looked really great and really bougie for the parents. Awesome. However, it had a shit backstage and the backstage area was crap and it was crowded. The other one had a really great backstage area, but it didn't have, you know, such a big stage. The stage was a little bit cramped. She talked about the wings. There wasn't enough wings. There was a few bits and pieces that were wrong with it. And so I came back to, okay, so what's your values? What's your main goal for the concert? For me, it was making incredible memories for my kids, for my students. Okay. And once again, that's mine. That's no judgment on anybody else's. Like each to their own. So for me, making incredible memories for kids. The kids spend 85% of their time off stage, so therefore the backstage area is actually more important to me than what it looks like from the audience perspective. Don't get me wrong, I do think that's important. There is a lot to that. But, you know, that's where my main value lies, is making sure that's amazing for the kids. So whether that's because of the change rooms or whether that's because of Other things that I do backstage, I want the backstage experience to be incredible for them because that's where they're making their memories. So I think that really helps in, you know, making decisions around that. You know, if you are once again talking about that elite kind of high level studio and your goal is prepare them for industry, well, then I actually think the opposite. You should be going for the really great stage with cramped dressing rooms. Because if, if you're working in the industry, quite often you have cramped dressing rooms and it's, you know, it's a very different type of vibe. So I think that knowing what you want out of your values in your studio and then also like moving forward to your, like, end of your show, your concert, whatever that is, it can really help decision making.

Yes. And I think that is having these values is what helps you move into that next level of leadership within your business and your studio. Because being a great leader isn't about micromanaging and telling everybody what to do in every decision. Being a great leader is about empowering those around you, your staff, to be able to make great decisions for your business. Because then that allows you to focus on the bigger picture, on growing your business and all those other things that are important to you. Right.

I love that you've brought that up because we chatted about that as well. Right. Like on yesterday's call, you know, once again, my personal value around the concert was making sure that every kid had memories that last a lifetime, that it was perfect for them.

Sorry, just. I think you just missed. It was like our concert values were that every parent and their families had great memories as well.

Absolutely, absolutely. But, you know, especially around our students as well.

Yes.

I think it's, you know, it was all about making memories as well for the kids, I guess, and that's really important. And I think that that's. It helped with how we, how I led my staff because what I didn't have to do was go, okay, if this happens, do this. If this happens, do this. If X happens. If this goes wrong, do this. Because what I actually did was talked about. Every individual child and their family's experience had to be incredible. It had to be making memories for them. So with that in mind, that helped them decide how to solve issues when they arrived. So if an issue arose where, you know, the student arrived without their shoes on, without their dance shoes, we've all had that situation. Right. Pain in the ass. No one wants a dance without, you know, who's forgotten their ballet shoes. So, so annoying. But my Staff knew that making incredible memories for that kid did not include, number one, them not going on stage. Did not include them being yelled at, did not include, oh, I've got balloons going off in my, in my zoom Room. I love my balloons. I speak so much with my hands. If you're watching us on YouTube, you'll see that I speak so much with my hands. And all my balloons go all the time anyway, you know, them being berated, the parent being made to feel bad. None of that aligns with making incredible memories. So therefore the problem was just fixed. We would find a pair of shoes to put them on, right?

Absolutely. And it's the same, you know, things like, you know, if the parent, if the kid turned up with their hair wrong or the makeup, like looking like a bit of a hot mess. I think it's sometimes like not empathy. Like sometimes like we know with our youngest, like sometimes doing things like getting hair or makeup done can involve almost World War three at our house of the morning. And so it could have been a really stressful couple of hours. If I then turn up to concert drop off and I get some sort of angry teacher berating me and my kid, that just makes a horrible memory for both of us.

Yeah, absolutely. And look, that's. That made it easy for us to make decisions in our business. And look, yours might be really high end. And therefore if they don't have their shoes and there was no spare ones, well, they're not going on stage because that's not preparing them for, you know, professional performance. I generally don't think that's the right thing for a dance studio, to be honest. But that's beyond the point. The point of today's podcast is having those values, making sure your staff understand them so they can make decisions around those and empowering them. Right.

And I think we would talk about, you know, we would talk about the values as we went through the concert day as well, because and again, having that really big overarching one of the fact that parents and their families are having incredible experience in making positive memories. We know that our high level comp kids and parents do have different expectations around a concert day than our kindergarten rec and our preschool students. Even. So when we have like our little pre meeting before the concert, we can talk about that. That it is meant to be a little bit different.

It can be different for different kids and different shows. Yeah, exactly.

For different clients within your studio. But as long as you're communicating that, you can still make those, those decisions on the fly. And like I said empowering your team to make those decisions.

Absolutely. So we would love to encourage you if you aren't clear about what your studio stands for, you know, it's something that you should be brainstorming. It's something that you should be discussing with your team. What are we? What's important to us? What do we care most about in our studio? What do our clients say they love most about us? And what do we really want to lean into? And that might be a great framework for you to start thinking about what your values are, I guess.

Yeah, without a doubt. And definitely something that, you know, if you don't do staff training, starting to get. Think about getting it ready for 2025 with your team and do something. Yeah. Get. Get all together. Get, get that staff training going. And this can be. It's a really great first activity, especially if you've never done it before, because your team, loves your team, is passionate about your studio. We know that lots of you have team members that have often grown up dancing in your studio. It's a really great activity to get them involved in and can have so many benefits for you, your business and your studio.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us on the Dance Principles United podcast. Great to chat to you as always. Thanks, Nath.

Thank you so much, guys. And like we said at the start, if you've got any questions or anything you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, please drop it in our DMs. We'd love to hear from you.

Thanks, guys. 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.