TOP EPISODES OF 2025 - How We Became Million Dollar Dance Studio Owners

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 another episode of the Dance Principles United podcast. How are you, my friend?

I am super awesome. Just getting into all things still in the studio. It's crazy life. What. What books are you reading at the moment, Amanda? I'd love to know.

Oh, what books am I reading? I don't know. If you do want to know, it could be embarrassing.

I do want to know.

My daughter is. Zali is a very big reader. She's like an absolute speed reader. You've never met someone that reads so fast. Anyway, she read whole Twilight series in the holidays.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, I should read those again. So I've just finished the first Twilight book again. Like, obviously I read it when I was a teenager. I read it again. It is not good in retro. In retrospect, I really had to push to finish it because she's like, you should reread it. But I'm like, yeah, and did that. But you know, it's cute things that you do for your daughters.

Really got into the Twilight thing. Yeah. I'm not really a fantasy.

I'm a. I'm not a fantasy kind of person.

I'm reading Jackie O at the moment. God, I love it. I've always loved her. Like, I just think she's such an inspiration and reading how she got into what she got into is just so interesting. I love. I love stuff like that.

That sounds like a much better book than Twilight. I'm gonna have to crop this out because everyone's gonna just laugh at me for reading Twilight.

It's all right.

I'm a 14 year old girl. It's fine. But yeah, so, so good. Hey, we're talking about the six things that we had to stop to become million dollar studio owners. Do you remember the moment where you started hitting a million dollars a year in revenue?

I think so. Because I think the business group I was in made us so made it a big deal. Yes. Made a big deal of it and also made us so aware of it. So.

And celebrated it.

Yes, I think I do do remember that.

I remember very much celebrating and yes, it's a hard things. And like, you know, we'd both had our studios for a long period of time before we started Hitting that million dollar plus mark in revenue every year. And there were definite things we had to stop doing, which is weird because I think sometimes people think it's more, more, more, more, but there was actually things we had to stop doing to actually finally get there and, you know, be the business we wanted to be in all of those things. So should we take it away with six things we had to stop doing to become million dollar studio owners back? What's number one?

Well, I think number one has to be stop being everything to everyone. And we see this all the time that we, Amanda, we're like, yeah, you know, they. I just think you have to be so clear in your own vision what you want for your studio. Because parents will always come in and give you their ideas of what they think you should be, give you their thoughts. And you know, it's so easy to get steered by them. And it's like that jack of all trades, master of none almost, you know, like it's that whole thing that you just, you've got to realize what you want and what you want to be and stop trying to do all of the things. I don't know if I'm explaining that.

Absolutely. And I think we've both done that as well. Right. We've made changes in our business and not stay true to our values so that we could keep that parent happy. And then this parent who wanted a whole different thing, we did that for them because we wanted to keep those clients happy. And then all of a sudden we were doing all of these different things. And you're trying to be this really high end comp studio, but also keeping the re like it was all like really hard, right? And just trying to do and trying to please everyone rather than saying for some people, hey, you know, I might be the sweetest peach, but you might not like peaches. That kind of whole, you know saying, right?

Yes. And a perfect example of that, if I can make it clear to everyone, for me would be if I took cheer on in my studio because there's a lot of my kids that love cheer and want to do cheer and my parents are constantly asking me to do cheer, but I just know it's not going to work and it's not something that I want to do.

Because you're not passionate about it.

Well, and it's not even that, it's that I just don't think it's what I'm about, you know. And so for me then I've got to say, if someone really wants to get serious about Cheer. I have to be brave enough to say to them that's. Then you need to go to excite down the road, who does Chi, Because I'm not the studio for you. Yes. So that's the other thing, I think with that trying not to be everything for to everyone is to then be brave enough to say, then you have to leave. Yes, that's what you want. Because I'm not going to provide that for you.

I'm not going to all of a.

Sudden go, oh, yeah, okay, but I used to do that.

Yes.

I used to go, yeah, let's do cheer. You know what I mean? Like, and now I'm a bit more.

And I, I think that's how, you know, a lot of people would be like, well, wouldn't you be making more money if you do cheer? The answer is no. When you're trying to do all things, you don't do anything well. And rather than, you know, you add the class for that person that wants to do that style, and then all those parents want the extra ballet class a week, so we're going to add, you know, an extra ballet class a week and we're going to do this new style and. Oh, but, but you get so distracted by trying to please all these people that you're not focusing on what you're great at and doing what you do and what you want your business to be about really, really well.

And what you. Yeah, exactly what you said, what your end game is for your students as well. I think sometimes, like for me, I know where we want to take our students, what full times we want them to go to. And I know not everyone's got an elite school, but, you know, cheers. Just not where it's at for that. For me.

For you, Absolutely. So stop trying to be everything to everyone. Yep, absolutely. Should I do number two?

Yes.

Okay, so number two is stop thinking that word of mouth alone is going to grow your studio. Word of mouth and a couple of, you know, good Instagram posts and organic stuff. It is not enough to grow your studio to seven figures to that million dollar mark. And, you know, you really need to be investing in advertising, investing in paid ads. But also, like, there's a whole heap of different things, but it's all advertising expenses because word of mouth is not, you know, what got you here won't get you there. And yes, you might have gone really well and gotten 200, 300, whatever students based on word of mouth and just a few little bits and pieces, but at some point that drops off and that doesn't continue forever. And if you want to really push higher, you've got to do more than word of mouth advertising.

I think it's dropped off in our society. Like I'm just sitting here thinking about Europe and the. We were in this really rural town in Italy. And in the rural town it is so different to here. So at night time from 5 till probably 11, the streets are full. So if you can imagine being in Kiama or you know, in Penrith and everyone's walking around the streets, talking to each other, going to restaurants, interacting. Yes, that is not our life.

No, it is not.

On a Tuesday night.

Absolutely not.

Our life is we all sit at home and watch television or scroll on our phones. Or scroll on our phones. That is the life of us. And I think that's why you can't have word of mouth because people don't interact anywhere near as much as they used to. Absolutely not a thing anymore.

And even like school pickup for example.

I was just thinking about school pickup. Exactly.

So when my daughter, my eldest daughter started school, I used to stand outside the front gates with all the parents actually not like outside the classroom. The whole kindergarten class would stand outside the classroom. Some of the parents would be there like 30 minutes before and would all stand and chat. We're not allowed to do that anymore at our school. They've actually, the schools have changed that. So even when my youngest started kindergarten, like that doesn't happen anymore. We actually have to sit and wait in our cars. That's our school drop off rules. But I think that's just like. And obviously not every school's as strict. But I don't think that same thing about people just like hanging out as much and chatting and you know, being there, it just doesn't seem to be there as much.

Yep. If you see a new brand, where do you see it?

Online.

Absolutely. Like none of us are walking down the street seeing a new brand and then opting into it. We're all seeing everything on our phone. Yeah. When I did staff training with SGC peeps a few weeks ago, I said to them, and Nath says this all the time, that's your shop window now. People aren't walking around the shops anymore looking at windows and opting into a brand. The phone is the shop window.

Yes, absolutely. And you know that word of mouth thing we were talking about for a period of time on online even there was still that word of mouth marketing. Like people would, you know, share someone else's stories, you know, for example, and go, I love Dancing at pause and share that. That doesn't happen very often unless like specifically planned and asked and incentivized. I only tell people about, I don't know, I feel like it's. I want to. Like it sounds awful, but I feel like so many people are like that. We generally talk about bad experiences.

Yes.

Not about our good experiences. A lot of people don't share the good experiences with each other.

Yep.

We just kind of talk about the bad things. So people aren't just talking about your brand anymore. So you can't just expect to grow on word of mouth anymore. You can't just expect to do Instagram posts or. And like, oh, I did a really cool reel today. Like unless you're putting money behind it, you know, it's really low chance that you're actually going to grow your studio. If you want it to be a million dollar studio, you're going to have to invest in advertising and marketing.

Oh, 100%. And coaching. I can't begin to tell you like that is. That's our next point, right?

Absolutely.

So, so important to invest in the coaching side of things and to make sure that that coaching is happening and that growth is happening. Like that was such a game changer for both of us, right?

Absolutely. I think that was such a huge thing. You know, really making sure you're surrounding with yourself with the right people as well is so, so important. And it's really hard to grow your business, you know, when it's the first time you've done it. I think that's the big thing. Right. Like, you know, it's funny, just off topic, I was Talking to my 10 year old JJ yesterday and I was like, hey babe, this is my first time being a mum. I'm learning how to be a mum, just like you're learning how to be a kid. I'm sometimes going to get it wrong.

Yep.

You know what? It's the same as a business owner, most studio owners, it's your first time being a business owner. It's your first time doing this. So like, of course you're going to make mistakes. If you want to be better, you have to learn from people who have done it before. You have to surround yourself with people that have done it before. I think that's so important.

But it blows my mind that people don't appreciate how important coaching is because we'd never not learn more about teaching.

Dance or, or expect that our, you know, advanced students in ballet have done all the learnings they could possibly do.

Yeah. And like we Constantly need to upskill and learn new things about that side of things. Why aren't we upskilling and learning new things about business? And we know that every great business owner out there is doing coaching you. There's no one great in business or even good in business that aren't doing some sort of coaching to learn how to do their business. And I know that was the biggest game changer for me. I know it was the biggest game changer for you. It's definitely one of those things that. That took us there, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Should we jump onto the next point?

Yes.

Stop letting the small shit get to you. Get it out of your head and get on with it, right?

Absolutely.

Like sweating the small shit. I think that's something that so many of us do. Like, we've all had that moment where it's, you know, oh, that parent emailed me. And we sit and we dwell on it. And you know, there was the complaint email and we sat and we dwelled on it. And, you know, and then we taught. That night we went home, we thought about it some more, and the next morning we're like, oh, what are we gonna write? And I started writing a reply. But, you know, like, we've all had this story play out, right?

Yes.

And sweating the small stuff is taking you away from doing the stuff that actually matters.

Yep.

And it's very hard to grow your business if you're spending all this time sweating the small stuff because it takes.

Up so much time and headspace. And it's taken me a long time to get to this point, but I'll give you a perfect example. Okay. I was teaching on Monday night.

Yes.

And a parent Facebook messaged me about 7:30 at night and said, hey, bet, can I chat, please? Now, straight away, of course, I know that something's gone wrong and that that parent needs to talk. So normally the old Beck would have dwelled on that, thought about it, possibly left that for two days. Gone. Over and over, things in my head, what could it be?

Yeah. Checked with all your teachers, asked everybody.

Like, yeah, not anymore. So now I just pick up the phone, talk to them straight away. One, it diffuses them, I feel. Two, it allows you the opportunity to see the problem and fix it. And the problem is fixed straight away.

Yes.

And that could have turned into something so big. And did I want to call them? No, absolutely not. Did not want to call them. I did not want to have to deal with that confrontation. But I've taught myself to deal with things straight away and not be Hot headed. That's the other thing. Like, if, you know, because they're going to complain about something and they did complain.

Yep.

And I have to see it from their perspective. You know, they've had an upset child go home and so I can't be defensive. I have to see it from them and go, yep, totally see that.

Yeah, he's, here's what we're gonna do.

Yeah, whatever.

Absolutely. And I think if you are one of those studio owners that sit on it for two days, you know, the next day, that could have been, you know, it could have taken away from the marketing efforts you were doing, you know, what you were doing to build a new program. Like, whatever it was, it's taking you away from doing so much more productive things. And when you sweat the small stuff, like the headspace that that takes, whereas if you can just clear it out, just do it and get on with it and move on. Because we all know what it's like to sort of sit there and have that computer open, but be thinking about something else and like worrying about, oh, the parents. It's exhausting. And we don't get anything done. You're not productive at that time, right?

Yeah, it's so exhausting. What about stop playing small?

It's a big one, right? Who's ever used the word, I'm just a dance teacher or I'm just a studio owner? I feel like so many of us play small and we think that our business is less than. It's not a real job. We've all had someone say to us, yes, oh, what do you, what else do you do? What else do you do? What's your real job like? We've all had that situation. What are you gonna do when you grow up? Like, you know what I mean? That kind of thing. What else? You know, And I feel like we all carry that a little bit. And, you know, I feel like sometimes you carry it as a bit of a, A scar, you know, whatever. A wound, whatever that is. And sometimes that keeps us playing small. We don't think bigger. We're like, oh, I'm just a studio. I could never make really good money. I'm just a dance teacher. I could never make really good money. I'm just a dance teacher. I don't understand, you know, that Facebook advertising. I don't understand, you know, budgeting or balance sheets, and I don't understand these things. And you play small and you keep yourself small. You don't go, hey, you know what? I'm running an incredible business. I'M ready to absolutely smash this, you know, because it's those stories you tell yourself, those stories, and those stories play out in real life. Right?

Yeah. I don't know if you remember a treat, a retreat, that we were both at a business retreat and a speaker got up and said, think big, as if nobody ever said no to you. Do you remember that? That was such a defining moment to me. And obviously there was a lot more to that talk. But I think the reason that I love reading biographies, you know, I'm going back to Jackie O, for example, is she was just a normal kid that grew up in a normal, you know, medium household, and just anyone can make success out of life and out of their business. And she just didn't think small.

Yes.

And she took the risks and off she went, and she took the opportunities when they were presented to her. And that's. I think that's why I love reading that stuff, because I feel like. And we're the same. Like, we both grew up in a normal dance studio and had normal lives. And, you know, it's just that we've taken extra steps and not played small.

Not played small. Absolutely.

And that's all it is. Absolutely. And anyone can achieve it.

Absolutely. So stop telling yourself you're just a dance teacher, or you could never earn more than a hundred thousand dollars a year, or you could. You know, we've all had those internal thoughts, and I think that if you're playing small and acting small, then that's keeping you small.

I think this is why I love working with studio owners every day like we do, because we often start with them being like that, you know, and them thinking that they could ever achieve 600 kids like I've got at the studio. Right. Perfect example. And I know, like, you know, I'm going to bring up Robin from Prodigy, who, I think when we started working with her, had maybe 150 kids. Max. She just hit 700.

Yeah. Incredible.

And, like, I know when we first started working with her, we. She never would have thought that she could have achieved that. And then now she's just killing it.

Absolutely.

But we see that all the time. She plays big now, but I think she's been given that belief as well. And, you know, we coach a lot on that. Yes. That you can achieve it. And we're seeing so many of them do that now. I think that's one of the things I just love most, is seeing that they can. You can achieve this. Guys, if you're listening to this right now, if I can do it. Any of you can do it?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's so exciting that there's that possibility. I feel like sometimes people just put themselves in a box and go, hey, I'm never going to get over 200 students. I'm never going to be able to afford a big studio like that. Or that studio owner can only do that because of X, Y and Z. Or I'm never going to be able to afford a car like that. Wouldn't that be amazing if I could afford a car? Like, yes, you can. Make it happen. Believe in yourself and do the work to get there.

Yes. And stop the limiting beliefs. Like, I know, I remember this was ages ago that one of my ballet teachers was teaching at a school down the road as well, I think, and they were like, oh, yeah, that, that pause. She's got all the preschoolers in the area. Like. And I've heard studio owners say that, oh, no, we can't get preschoolers because, you know, the other studio down the road has 200 preschoolers at their school. And I'm like, have you ever looked up how many preschoolers are in Penrith, for example? Yes, it is an astronomical amount.

Just because you got 300, you do not have all of them.

I would say there would be about 50 preschool. Preschools at least within a 5 to 10 minute drive of my studio.

Absolutely.

I'm not, I don't have all the preschoolers, guys. Like, there's plenty to go around. There's plenty of kids to go around. So don't use that as your limiting belief either.

I love that. Such a good, such a good point. Such a good point. All right, the next one. Stop neglecting your younger students and your newer students. And I think this, you know, we spoke about in our last podcast, the ego driven thing, right? And this comes down to it. And what we mean by that is, you know, quite often ego driven decisions are putting out, you know, our beautiful 15, year 15 and under kids that are doing these triple pirouettes and blah, blah, blah, blah. All of this on our Instagram. Putting that out into the world and just focusing on that rather than focusing on your preschool or your new little rec kids that are doing a junior hip hop class. Because, you know, it's really important that we balance those two. If you really want to grow your numbers and grow your figures as well and grow your revenue.

Well, it's one of the first things we do with our clients, isn't it? When we jump on with them, we look at their Instagram, we look at their Website. And then I often say to them, I want you to just go into your website now and look at it as a preschool parent. Yeah. Because a preschool parent is not going to opt into your brand. And whilst you have a beautiful elite ballet dancer there. And I'm really impressed. And that's amazing. That is not appealing to that parent.

Absolutely.

And I get it as well. Like you do have to have a balance and I get that if you are an elite ballet school, you've got to show that at the same time.

That's what you do.

But you've got to show all of those things and you know, you've got like, if you look at the pause Instagram, you'll see every third post is preschool. Absolutely without fail. There is no negotiation on that. We still put our seniors up there and we put, you know, some other stuff up there. But every third post is preschool because we always want those preschool to parents to come in so that you grow from the bottom up.

Yeah, it's that interesting thing. Like you BB just won World Dancer of the Year. And tell me about past Beck. If you'd had a student that had done that in the past, what would have happened on your. Not that Instagram was around then, but you know, what would have happened on your Instagram, what would have happened? Like, you know, would there have been a photo? Would have been all about it, right?

Oh yeah, all about it. And. But Paspect wouldn't have had any preschool on her Instagram ever anyway.

That's what I'm saying. Like it would have just been so many photos of that child doing, you know, with the crowns, with the tiaras, doing the leg mounts, snippets of the dance. Is that right? Like full like blown routines. I'm assuming it would have been on the website. It would have been all of the places.

Yeah.

And now for sure, you celebrated her on your Instagram, but.

Yes, but I think there's one post.

Yeah, but it wasn't what your whole studio has become about.

Definitely not.

Because you know now that we have to just like stop neglecting those preschoolers. Because the preschool parents, like, they want to see that. Yeah, yeah, great. But they don't want it to be all about that.

No. And I also think like when you make it all about that, you're just trying to get kids from other studios and that's like if you get two or three kids from another studio a year, I think that's a lot even to get. And I just don't think you should be aiming for that if you, if you can grow from the bottom up. The best advice I ever got. I know I say it all the time, but if those little preschoolers who then become your fives and sixes, who then become your sevens, eights, they're the ones that love your school the most and the more of those little people you can get in, they're your future.

Absolutely.

So, yeah, so stop neglecting them. Yeah, stop neglecting them and stop trying to get kids from other studios and just start really honing in on them and making them your amazing little people.

Absolutely.

Because they're the next generation and that's.

How you grow your business. And, you know, I want to talk about, like, stop neglecting them, obviously, in terms of the marketing and what you're putting out there and things like that, but also in terms of, you know, one of my biggest pet peeves is, you know, when you go to a concert and it's very apparent which ones are, you know, the eight and under recreational jazz class and the eight and under, you know, comp team. And it's so apparent in terms of, you know, yes, the student's ability, but really at 8, you know what I mean? Like, obviously sometimes there are incredible kids and all of that, but like 8 year olds are 8 year olds. Like there's all of that. But it's, you can tell because the choreography isn't as good. They've had the teacher that's not as good. They've got the shitter costumes. No one's cut their music properly. Do you know what I mean? It's like a side thought at their concert rather than making, you know, them actually look incredible by giving them a really high level teacher who's going to do really great things with these kids and make it really important and special for them because then they grow into more. Right.

And being smart about celebrating that stuff on your Instagram, like not always celebrating the trophy winner or the kid that gets the crazy back tuck, but maybe the child that gets the cartwheel, you know, because that is probably more appealing to the majority of parents coming into your school anyway. They're never going to think their child could do a back tuck, but they, their child is probably trying very hard to get a cartwheel.

Absolutely, absolutely. I love that one. That's, I think that's a really important thing you've got to stop doing. What's our next tip? Missing spec.

Well, I think the last one is stop thinking you don't need help. And we kind of went into that with the whole, you know, Business coaching and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's such a. I can't begin to tell you what a game changer it is to invest into coaching. And, you know, we still invest in coaching and I know we're coaches telling you to invest in coaching and you probably think, yeah, they're just trying to get us to invest. But the thing is, like, it's honestly is such a game changer and as I said before, you wouldn't not invest if you're an elite ballet studio. You're going to be investing in all the latest techniques of ballet.

Right.

You're a business owner. You need to be investing in all the latest techniques in business, you know.

Absolutely.

AI is such a game changer. We are talking to our people about it all the time. I know you just did some incredible stuff with our tribe members on AI.

Absolutely.

So amazing at it.

I cannot wait for what I've got in store for a treat. I'm beyond excited to share it. Yeah.

So things like that, guys like you just don't realize what a difference that in itself is going to make in you getting time and getting systems in and doing all of that stuff. And it's, you know, it was such a game changer for me. I don't think I would still have the studio today if I hadn't invested in business coaching.

Absolutely.

And when I did it, it was a massive investment for me. I think I was investing back then 500 a week and that was huge for me.

Yes.

I wasn't paying myself properly. I was a single mom at the time and investing 500 a week was a lot of money, but I was at the point of no return. It was that or lose the studio. And God, I'm grateful I did because I wouldn't be here now.

Absolutely.

And I wouldn't know the things I know and be able to help other people with that now.

I love that story so much. And I think to me, it's also about surrounding yourself with the right people. Right. And being pushed. It's not just about the systems you learn and all of those things, but the community that you build and the people who are checking in on you say and holding you accountable. You know, go, hey, have you done that? You said you were going to do that. How's that going? Because that makes us better every single time it strives us to be better. I think that's so important. And I think, you know, all of those things, like, if you can really stop doing some of those things and stop, you know, overthinking things and all of that that will really help you grow to be a million dollar studio owner.

Yep, absolutely. If there's something that really resonated with you today, we always love hearing from you guys. So drop us a dm and if you would like more support from us, drop us a DM and we'll let you know how we can do that.

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