Who the f#%k is Jamie

Hello, friends. I'm Amanda Barr.

And I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan. And welcome to Dance Principals United, the podcast.

Together, we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio.

Join us as we talk everything from marketing systems, studio culture, motherhood, life and everything in between.

This is the Dance Principles United podcast. Hi, friends, and welcome to the Dance Principles United Podcast. Hello, lovely Beck. It's so lovely to see you today.

It is amazing to see you. We're seeing each other so much lately. Amanda, it's super exciting. We are in person as well. It's craziness. I love it.

Oh my gosh, it is so, so good. So tell me, give me a life update. Beck, what's happening in the wonderful world of Beck?

Week one back at pause last week, which was super epic and amazing.

And.

That'S about.

Was not. What did we do on the weekend?

Well, I thought I'd leave that to you to tell everyone.

I see. Yeah. Well, on the weekend we went to Melbourne. It's Monday morning, we're recording this and so we didn't get home till, I don't know, about midnight.

Ish.

Last night from Melbourne, we were just sort of a fly in, fly out. Gosh, I wish we had more time in Melbourne, don't you?

Yes, because I think I quickly went down to the shops on the Saturday night because I forgot my lipstick. And then I was like, this shopping looks insane. And I, and I do love didn't.

Get there till 6 o' clock Saturday night. So next time we have to allow more time. It was so good. We had a wonderful time meeting some incredible Melbourne studio owners at our one day enroll more students event. We had some lots of new people to our world, which was so fantastic. So many incredible studio owners. And then we had some of our members join us as well, which was great.

How awesome was that room? Like, I was just so proud of everyone for being brave enough to share, you know, their stuff and their stories and to chat to each other. And I was talking to one of the members and just saying, like, we are stronger together. You know, there's still pockets where people feel like they're against their studios in their area and it, it definitely shouldn't be like that. We should just all build each other up and get on. I love it.

Absolutely. Like our industry is stronger when we all grow together. There's more than enough kids to go around. We all need to elevate dance in our areas or in Australia generally. Like, it's so, so, so good. It was so wonderful. It Was so good to meet new people that we'd never met before and then feel so confident. Like, I know a lot of people came in, they didn't know anyone in the room that you could see that they were timid. But within an hour they were opening up and sharing and I think they all took lots of inspiration away. They also had an incredible day and, like, took lots of tangible things back to their studio to grow, which is so awesome.

So awesome. It was such an amazing, amazing weekend. So, yeah, love, love meeting new people and doing all the things. It was so great. But that's not what we're talking about today, Amanda.

It is not what we're talking about today.

My, my question to you today is who the is Jamie?

Well.

Good question.

We thought we'd name this podcast who the is Jamie? Because we talked about Jamie yesterday. So shall I introduce you to Jamie? Who shall I give you a full rundown of Jamie?

I'm so excited to talk about Jamie. It's crazy. Tell me about Jamie.

Ah, okay. So Jamie is 37 years old. Yeah. Jamie lives in Shell Cove area. Her husband is an excavator and owns an excavating company. She used to be in pr, but now she does her husband's books occasionally. She does a bit of PR on the side for her friends. But, you know, she's a mum majority. She likes to buy her coffee at Bean Roasted because that's the best place. She's high end label kind of girl. You know, her kids are in Country Road mainly. She, she wears a lot of Country Road, but you know, she does like a good designer handbag. Her kids go to the Anglican college in our area. She drives a black Range Rover. She lives in a very specific couple of streets in our area. And I could keep going. This is a lot I know about Jamie.

It is very specific about Jamie. So who the fuck is Jamie?

Jamie is not a real person. Jamie is absolutely not a real person. Okay, so Jamie is an ideal client avatar and Jamie is someone that I invented. And it's definitely a combination of people, right? It's a combination of people who are our ideal clients that we used to talk about in our studio all the time. Now there's so much more that I could tell you about Jamie that I just forgotten that little blurb because Jamie has two kids, a girl and a boy. Her husband is quite competitive and into sports. They don't have a dance background. And there's all of these things I can keep going on. Now here's the important thing. Jamie's made up. But Jamie is a very important part of my business and my marketing strategy. So much so that we had a photo of Jamie on the wall, this made up cartoon version of Jamie. Crazy, right?

I love it. I absolutely love it. And so as a team, what did you use Jamie for then?

So Jamie was the client that we wanted in our studio. Obviously we attract different types of clients, but she was the type of client we wanted. And what that meant was every time in our marketing, for example, that we put something out into the world, we were like, does Jamie like this, Is this something that Jamie would want to know? If Jamie hadn't started dancing with us yet, would this attract Jamie? And that really helped us with our puzzle pieces. Right, because here's what Jamie's like. As I mentioned, Jamie's husband's quite competitive and that kind of naturally comes off to her. She was in pr, she was quite high up corporate, so she, you know, she had a bit of fire to her. Right. So she knows nothing about dance, but she does appreciate quality. She does being in pr really want to see her kids confidence skyrocket. So when we were trying to attract Jamie, the types of things she was interested in was she didn't understand what rad was or pbt, but what she did want to know was that, you know, we had incredible teachers that were quite qualified. Doesn't say in what because she doesn't know what R means. Right? That's she's like, she reads that going rad. What the hell is rad? You know what I mean? Like literally, like that's what people do. Is that true?

Y. Yeah, all the time. All the time.

They. And you know, she wouldn't have known who what that was, you know, but what she did want to see was kids confidence growing. She did want to see kids being part of teamwork because her husband was very big in the sporting world. You know, there were all these other elements that Jamie wanted to see. And I think it's really important when we think about our social media and our marketing and our posts that we are speaking to the Jamie's of the world. For me and for you, you would have your own ideal client and really thinking like, is this something she wants to hear about? Is this something she wants to know before enrolling and does she understand what I'm actually trying to get across and convey in this post?

I love it. And I think one of the big things that we see go wrong with social media with our clients, Amanda, is that they are not marketing to the Jamie's of the world. But they're marketing to their peers. You know, they're marketing to other studio owners or other teachers. And this definitely used to be me. And so you'd have, you know, the beautiful aesthetic dance picture up there or you'd have everybody looking so perfect in their immaculate. With their hair immaculate and their beautiful feet. And we wouldn't show a dancer who wasn't perfect and amazing. And that's not what Jamie's looking for. Right. Like, Jamie wouldn't really care about that at all.

She doesn't even know what a sickled foot is.

Right, Exactly. Exactly. But as you said, if we're thinking about confidence and gaining that or thinking about what her kids could get out of dance classes, like the friendships make maybe, or the social side of things, that's probably something more that Jamie's interested in. So I love that whole, you know, every time you do a post or every time you do a story, not trying to do it towards your peers or to other studio owners, but always.

Or current students.

Right, Exactly. But you're always thinking, is that for Jamie?

Right, Absolutely. Because, you know, as we said, using, you know, for example, like, you know, both Beck and I have always had rad in our studios, but writing rad just confuses the out of a person like Jamie.

Yes.

Your current students know what RID is, but that's not who we're trying to attract in our posts, you know, and Jamie doesn't care about RID because she's never even freaking heard of it.

Yeah.

But she does know about teamwork. She does know about celebrating successes. She does know quality. Quality as well. She, you know, for me, my ideal client was, and this isn't for everybody and it's different areas. And you know, I was in quite a high socioeconomic area. Jamie wants really trendy, high end quality things. So that even helped me in terms of what my posts look like, what my uniform looked like, the quality and the price point of my uniform. The same with my costumes. Because Jamie cared about that. She actually cares about the Instagram. She's all about the aesthetics. Right.

Yep. I want to touch on that with the uniform for a second because I know we do this as a team as well. And you know, I really, every time we bring something in that's that kind of uniform, we think about whether those parents would just buy that anyway, like whether they would actually go and that's what they want their child to be wearing. You know, it's that trendy. Is it like, is it something that they would potentially go and do. Because I think we've got to remember that people will buy, buy, buy like I. Clothes for baby all the time. Your girls are still young, I bet, like with sass and stuff. Like, you must love still buying like cute outfits for them. And I just, I, I'm, I was obsessed with that. With BB, not so much now that she's 14. Obviously very strong opinions on that. Mum is not cool anymore.

You'd be shocked to know that Sassy, my youngest, is exactly the same and has very strong opinions.

Damn it. But like, it's that whole thinking about what would Jamie buy her kids? You know, would Jamie like her kids in leopard print? Would Jamie like her kids in, you know, the, the cool Adidas looking tights that are out at the moment. Like, is that something that Jamie would like? And I think that's so important.

Absolutely. Or in your area, your ideal customer might be a little bit more traditional. They might be an older parent. Based on where you're at because of the age range of children, people having children, maybe they are looking for something more traditional, more classical, which means your uniform and all your marketing should be aimed at that person. And there's no right or wrong, but you have to be clear with who you're talking to.

And that's something that I think people really miss. Is that clear clarity around who they are actually talking to?

Right, Absolutely. And so let's pull back to the marketing and that whole like awareness and education part of it. Because, you know, for me, my ideal client, Jamie, she was educated, you know, she was very intelligent, she had money, she had had a lot of experience in a lot of different sports, but not dance. And dance is a weird, crazy thing, isn't it? Like, it's so weird other people from the outside would go, what the hell?

So weird. I was saying this yesterday in Melbourne. Like, who would wear stockings on the, out on the inside of their undies? Like, can you imagine sending your child to school in stockings and putting their undies on the outside? Like, that is just so unheard of. Yet in my studio, I've had a kid walk in like that and all the teachers like, how embarrassing. And I'm like, hang on, that's weird. Only superheroes do that. No one else on earth does that. But it's except ballerinas and superheroes. That's the two. You're either Superman or a ballet dancer. And apparently that's how you wear your stockings and leotards. But I just, I guess what I'm saying that for is we, we eat Breathe, sleep, love, dance every day. And we totally get it. And then we think it's weird. Weird if someone doesn't understand it, but they don't get it. They don't know that stuff. They don't understand how it all works. It makes zero sense to them. And it is actually such a weird thing that we have dedicated our whole lives to.

And, and that's the thing. You know, you said we've eaten, slept, breathed it. And most of us, most studio owners and most people listening have done that and since they were two years old.

Right, exactly.

It's just, it's just so part of their life. But that's not 95% of the population. That's not a normal person. And most of you are trying to attract, you know, new parents to dance, which means you have to educate them, number one, teach them how you wear the stockings once they're in the world. But also you have to convey benefits that are not like assumed knowledge. Right? We do incredible things in our classes. Like, we know that in every single one of our classes, we get our students ready for school. If we're teaching preschool. We teach discipline, we teach hard work, we teach waiting in turn for a line, we teach time management, we teach, you know, you know, health setting and goal setting and, you know, looking after yourself and presentation and confidence. And like, you know, we could keep sitting there and listing all the incredible things we do. Because dance, I actually believe, is just a tool to teach those things in life. And that can also be taught through other disciplines. Let's be completely honest. Dance is not the only thing, like the only after school activity that can teach all of those things. But you have to con, you know, parents don't know what they don't know. And dance sometimes has a bad rep in society. Right? Like, thank you so much, dance moms.

My favorite show. Don't know.

I know it's your favorite show. I shouldn't knock it, but it does. It has a bit of a bad rep. And for some people, or it has negative connotations, you know, for some people in the world. And so people don't know what they don't know. So if you don't educate people that you are teaching these things inside your classes and tell Jamie that you're teaching all these things and just are talking in language that she doesn't understand. Language that is assumed knowledge to someone who dances, she doesn't get it. Don't talk about rad, pbt, Fuettes, like, whatever. Don't use language that is specific to us. In any social media or highlighted even.

I love it. And also show your audience the amazing things that you are doing. That isn't just dance. I think that's the big thing as well. You know, I can't. We're looking at someone's content the other day, Amanda, and it was just like a classroom kind of video of them doing, I can't even remember a warm up or something like that. And like no one actually cares about that, but probably 10 seconds before that they were sitting down chatting about their goals or something. And that's the part that parents care about. And I think that's where we miss the mark. You know, there's so many amazing things that happen in our studio that the Jamie's of the world would go, wow, I can't believe they do that in dance. I can't believe. High five five.

The goal setting, the stickers at the end, like all of that is actually more important to so many parents.

Yes. And I, I spoke about this yesterday and said, you know, and I've spoken about it before on the podcast, I'm sure, but when you're at soccer, you're a part of that. You're watching the team, you know, essentially train together. You're watching the team play together every single week, twice a week for the whole time they're in soccer. In dance, we don't take the parents into the classroom. So they're not seeing that. They don't know that you've set goals. They don't know that you've, you know, taught them to do it bit by bit at home and stretch people. They don't know any of that stuff because we don't share it with them. And our new clients coming in don't know that either until they get there, potentially.

You know, that's really interesting because, you know, as you're saying that I'm reflecting, my girls, both, all three of them played soccer last year. You know what my favorite part of watching soccer is? Because shocking. You know, un, unsurprisingly, unshockingly, I am not interested in soccer and I could not care less about soccer.

I'm so shocked.

However, what I did love to see was half time.

Okay?

I loved watching Sassy, especially at halftime. I loved seeing her sit in a circle with those kids. You know, there was the mum that brought the oranges and they were mucking around and the coach was chatting to them. Now, Sassy did not win a soccer game. I'm pretty sure they only got one goal all season. They were very, very bad at soccer and there were a lot of tears from a lot of the kids on the field. But what I love seeing was that. And you know, as you're saying that, I'm just remembering that that's what I love seeing was that half time. I loved the coach that. You know, obviously coaches in soccer are not like dance teachers. They're not paid, they're just a dad. He was doing his absolute best to inspire them. He was doing such a good job of giving them all high fives and trying to stop, you know, a whole bunch of six year olds crying and reward them for being absolutely terrible. Like they were, you know, being like flogged like, you know, in a 600, like 30 nil kind of thing every single day. It's really good, it's really great. But that was what I, that's what I loved the most.

Yeah.

And that's all I want for my kids and so many other parents do that. So like you were saying, like that's the moments they want to see. But in our dance classrooms behind closed doors, they can't be part of that. So we've got to exactly educate them and show them on social media.

Yep, absolutely. Now I want to get back to Jamie because I feel like our listeners today could take away from this, go back after listening to the podcast and actually put their own Jamie together. So what are your top 10 things you think they need to think about with Jamie? Obviously age. What other things are in there?

Yeah, so create your own Jamie. I would sit there and don't forget it's not a real person, it's a fictional person. But you know, be really super specific. How old is Jamie usually? Like obviously what sex is Jamie, but let's be honest, it's normally a mum for a dance studio owner is who you're trying to attract. That's your ideal client. You know, I would really be thinking about what kind of income bracket she's in, whether she's a stay at home mom, a professional mum, a teacher, you know, based on her, you know, hours of work and then the income that she has based on that, you know, is very, very important. And also what the family income is. Is she a single parent? Is she, you know, part of a couple? How much is their family income? And like actually know that actually, like, don't just create like what you'd like. If you live in an area where, you know, the mean family income is a hundred thousand, don't go, oh, my ideal client has a mean family income of 300. If there's no one in your area that does that. Actually think about what's happening in your area. But then even more, you know, dive into what kind of clothing brands do they wear, what do they put their kids in? Do they post their kids a lot on social media and what's important to them in social media? What coffee shops do they go to, what play centers do they take their kids to? Because all of those things give you ideas of where to market. If you know what coffee shops they go to, then, you know, that's the coffee shop that you should be going and asking to, you know, come and sponsor your event or put flyers at. If you know what play center they go to. You know, it's knowing to do a collaboration with them if you know what school they're going to. You know, and then if they're. If it's a public school or a private school and if you can get in there and what daycares they go to, you know, like, getting really granular with that can really help you make so many decisions. And so if you haven't done that yet, I'd sit there and like, you know, obviously I went next level with it, but it was fun and it. And it made it easy for us to make decisions.

Yeah, I think it's great to go boss mode with this. Like, you know, put a picture of Jamie up on the wall, have a vision board if you have to, of all the different things that Jamie likes. And when you're sitting down with your team or if you're your team, which is fine, you can kind of look at that and go, okay, is that what Jamie would want the kids to wear? Is that the type of costume. Jamie would absolutely do it? You know, that's. Even when we go to costumes, we think about that. Is that the, you know, is that the type of music that Jamie would want the kids dancing to? Is that the kind of post on social media that will attract Jamie? There's so many facets of your business where you can really put Jamie into play and it can help you to make some really smart decisions.

I 100% agree. You know, for me, you know, even, you know, as you said, costumes, music, all of that, like, you know, how you're billing when you're billing, how much, you know, do you need to break the costume payments up? Because does Jamie need the costume payments broken up or does she have enough money that she doesn't actually care and she can pay it in one lot? Do you know what I mean? Like, and that's individual to each person's area and what their ideal client is. So I would definitely recommend that you create your own avatar. And, you know, it's a really, really powerful tool to do. If you're interested, we do have an ideal client avatar worksheet. So drop us a DM and I'll send you through that worksheet. We can send that to you. But my last tip for it is, don't make it, you know, your dream person that you can't. You don't actually have. It needs to be a reality for you. I think often when I talk about my ideal client avatar, people are like, oh, I want the same one as you, because mine has money. But that is actually specific to my area. And if your area isn't the same, don't just go with the same. And that's okay. Right?

But also be educated in that. Because I can tell you now, if people say Penrith Western Sydney, I guarantee you that you, Amanda, would think that I wouldn't have that type of affluence in my area, but I actually do. So I think you need to actually be educated about that. Actually look up the statistics and not just think that, you know, because, well, for me, because I'm in Western Sydney, that that means that there's no money out here because there is this, you know, family will spend a lot of money on their children and who really value dance. And so I think, yeah, just be aware of that. It's, you know, I think everyone should be aware of their area in general, of who's there, how many preschoolers are there, how many, you know, how many what. What is the average income of your area?

And what are they paying for things? Like, you know, to me, I really love that because, you know, going, like, looking on their social media, like, are their kids wearing Kmart shoes? Are they wearing Nike shoes? You know what I mean? Like, because that shows, you know, how much they're putting into their children. And, like, obviously, everyone wears a range of everything. Let's not be honest, but do you know what I mean? But it's where they find the value and what they care about.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, we hope you guys absolutely loved today. We would love you to let us know how you go with Jamie and, you know, reach out if you need any help with that at all. But it's a total game changer, and we'd love to see you thinking about your ica.

Thanks, Bec. So good to chat. Can't wait to see you next week.

Bye.

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.