Getting Raw - #11 -Kylie Saunder

Hey, how you going? It's Richard and Mark Toutounji, and welcome to Getting Raw. Today I've got Kylie Saunders from Pilates Yoga Biz.

Hi, Richard.

Is that right, or is it Yoga Pilates Biz?

It's pilatesyogabiz.com.

Pilatesyogabiz.com. Yeah. Now, some of you maybe never heard of Kylie and her business because you may be personal trainers at gyms, but what I really find fascinating about it is that the only Pilates business coach that I've come across so far in Australia. And I really find it fascinating because I think everybody needs a coach. And I remember I had a corporate wellness company a couple years ago and we employed a lot of Pilates and yoga instructors. And I'm not being out there to say they don't know how to run a business, but—

They don't.

I mean, they couldn't even give me my invoices when I asked for them. They couldn't even put their weekly invoices to me to actually get paid. And I was really scratching my head thinking, what's going on here? I mean, like, they won't even get paid. So I want to really ask you about this whole industry because, I mean, I actually taught Pilates when I used to work on a ship and they put me on an 8-session program and I was told to try it.

Very thorough.

Very thorough, yeah. So that's what we did. But I want to know more about the industry and I want to know why you're in that industry and is there any money in the industry for a start?

Definitely money to be made. It's the mind-body industry is only going to be booming more 2012 and beyond. One of the reasons why there's a— I suppose you experience that with your instructors. It's like money is a bad thing, and that comes from the yoga world, especially the Eastern philosophy. It's like money's bad, corporate greed's bad, you don't need to be paid for what you're doing. But my philosophy with Pilates Yoga Biz is you're running a business and you need to pay your rent, your mortgage, you need to put petrol in your car. And if you don't put invoices in, if you're not making a healthy profit, you're running a very expensive hobby. And that's something that I experienced in one of the businesses. I've actually come from the fitness world, and prior to that, the corporate world in sales and marketing. I experienced that in one of my businesses where it looked like I was doing really, really well, but I was barely breaking even each week, you know, surviving on $80 a week. I know what it's like as an instructor who's running a really busy studio not to be able to nearly make rent and to be lying on the floor in their fetal position crying, and I stand up and say, yes, I have had physical and emotional trauma over that. Because you're doing something you love, and especially from the yoga world, you love connecting with your people. It's a spiritual experience for a lot of instructors, but because it's a spiritual experience, it doesn't actually mean that you can't be making an income from that. And I think it's out of alignment not to be making a healthy profit.

And that's the biggest, in your experience, that's where you're seeing the biggest issue In regards to business,

yoga

and Pilates instructors, the challenges they're having.

They tend to— they love teaching, and so they invest all their time and effort creating class plans, going to conferences and learning more and more techniques, learning about new equipment that's coming out, which is fantastic. And I'm really a big supporter of continuing education. However, if you don't know how to market your business, you're not going to be around in 3 or 5 years' time. You know, the business world is fast and it doesn't need to be a threatening, horrible place. I help people get over that, just that mindset of, oh my gosh, if it's business, it's gonna be hard. It's actually not hard to create a healthy profit in your business.

Is it the same issue in the fitness industry we're having is, you know, under a year, I think it's 9 months, something like that, in regards to personal trainers leaving the industry? Are we talking the same stats in this industry?

Similar stats. It's a hidden dilemma in the Pilates and yoga industry because This subject isn't spoken about because everybody thinks that they should be doing a lot better than they should be. So I'd say that Pilates and yoga are a step behind fitness.

How many years do you think?

I would say even 5 to 10 years. Statistically, we don't have any research on how many people get trained and then never teach. But anecdotally, it's a lot of people who aren't even prepared after coming out of their instructor training to know how to create an income from working for someone. Where they'll work at a few studios around town and maybe even at gyms, in mat classes, and they're just running themselves ragged where they're physically burning out and they realize, oh my gosh, I only earned $25,000 last year for all that effort. I can't do this. And then they might go back to admin work part-time.

It sort of sounds like the, you know, personal training industry, but even worse. Exactly, yes. They're just getting a fee per class. I guess trainers, they're saying, yeah, here's the big bucks, let me earn $80, but they don't know how to run their business properly. But in your situation, it's like, A lot worse than it sounds like.

It is a lot worse, and there is a big boom in mind-body. People want mind-body classes.

I went to the Mind Body Festival, what, 2 weeks ago? Yeah. Booming, huge.

Yep.

It was the first day and it was absolutely packed.

There's a huge demand in the general community for what yoga and Pilates instructors are offering, a booming demand. It's just that everybody's marketing themselves the same. So it's like a vanilla. If you look in, you type in your suburb and then put Pilates or yoga after it, most of the websites look the same. The colors may change a little bit, but it will all go, you know, your Pilates website typically talks all about Joseph Pilates and his history on the first page. Look, Joseph Pilates was an amazing man, way ahead of his time. Yes, that information is important, but it doesn't need to be on the homepage. So I help people with things like that to really connect with who you want to work with, who's going to be your most profitable market to work with.

Now you've done the hard yards in Pilates. Sure. Now you're a coach. What was the trigger point for you wanting to get into the media? I mean, it's the same as you're saying the other instructors. What's the trigger point? I think you were working in corporate and then you switched, is that right?

Yep, corporate. So I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in politics. I had a minor in marketing. That was in 1990, so yes, I am quite old. But the exciting thing about that was I graduated when there was the recession we had to have. So some of you were way too young to know when that was. That was with Paul Keating as the Prime Prime Minister. We had to have that recession. I could only get an admin job. So, very highly qualified, international politics and with marketing chucked in there.

Still a good admin job.

Yeah, it was fantastic. So, yeah, I got a base-level admin job from that. I got employed at Amcor and then Motorola. So, at Motorola, I worked in sales and marketing roles. I was really— I loved that culture. They went through a downturn, and as a result of that, we got some career coaching. And one of the things that came out of that was, Kylie, while you're working in the corporate world, you're actually more suited to something in the fitness world. Because I was always the one in the corporate world who would have her tuna salad for lunch. Everybody else would be going out and getting burgers. And I'd be the girl sitting there with the—

And you'd be giving the programs out to people,

yeah? Yeah. And I'd be up at 5 o'clock to get to the gym by 5:30, and then have a shower and get to work by 8:00. And then I'd go for a long walk after work. And I'd have the 2-liter water bottle on my desk. And I'd make sure I'd drink that before lunchtime. Before lunchtime? Whoa, you're way ahead of me. I was a fitness freak. As far as I can remember, I've been a fitness freak. So they said, well, how come you're not in the fitness industry? I'd never even thought about it. From that, Motorola made a lot of people redundant. I left. I studied fitness. Started group exercise classes. Remember when the Fitball was all the rage all those years ago?

Yeah.

Taught Fitball classes all around Melbourne, bouncing on the ball, teaching grapevines, all that. Then I thought, no, I really want to do PT. So I started, really got into core stability, core training.

Yeah.

I was also doing a lot of heavy weights and almost body shaping competition. I didn't quite get to that point because I got injured. That injury led me to Pilates. So through that Pilates training, I loved it so much I started studying it. And at that time there was only me and another person in that intake of the training school who'd come from the fitness industry, very dance oriented. So I was the loud person in that group.

You

were a troublemaker? I was a troublemaker. You know, if you want to work in, you know, the studio I trained at used to play classical music and opera, so not really my scene. You know, I was more—

You were, um, the high personality?

Yeah, I was like, you know, you're too loud, don't, don't laugh. And yeah, so, um, and then I entered into a business relationship that was like 8 years with a Pilates studio in Melbourne, and then that, um, ended. I sold my business, I opened up another studio by myself, and through that business, everything I've learned through the The things to do, the things not to do. I employed a business mentor then.

It's really interesting. And just the point there where you've got— I just really love to hear people's stories.

Yep.

Because you always find the golden nugget. And I think for you, it was going through, you just said you had a— I picked up you had a business partnership and I don't think it turned out very well by the sounds of the conversation.

Yeah, I mean—

And then you decided to take that step further and actually get a business coach. And obviously you're coaching now yoga, you're coaching, you know, US clients, Australian clients. And you're training clients and your employees how to run their business based on a bad move or a bad partnership or bad mistakes, and you've bounced back from it.

Yeah, look, the mistakes, you know, you look back in your life and people go, did you regret that? Definitely not. I mean, we had a lot of very good times, but also in that business, I look back now and I go, you know, I'm really glad I experienced that, but I also know there are people out there in the industry now who are experiencing exactly the same things I went through. So when I got my business mentor, she helped me with, you know, what strategies to put in place, who did I want to work with, which was like, oh, you mean I can choose what sort of clients I want to work with and targeting those with my marketing message. So I had that studio for 1 year, and during that year I was getting a bit jaded with teaching, and I thought, you know what, I had people coming to me asking, well, how come you're doing that? You sold that business, you're doing this, help me. And so then I developed Pilates Yoga Biz, and I've been doing this nearly 2 and a half years now.

And you've got, so you said you've got US and Australian clients on webinars? Yeah, webinars.

My business is virtual, so I talk to people through Skype, but also GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar. I have a lot of Melbourne and Sydney clients, but a lot of those I haven't even met face to face. So it's just a—

Web-based business.

It's a web-based business, yeah. Twitter's been an amazing tool for me to grow my business too.

You are big on Twitter?

I love Twitter.

I do see you around on Twitter a bit.

Yeah, I'm out and about on Twitter, so connect with me there. Yeah, I just find the Pilates industry especially is really, really interactive. On Twitter, not so much on Facebook.

On the Twitter world. Yeah, Twitter world. Okay, so if you want to see Faye, you gotta go to Twitter world.

Yeah, Twitter world.

And I sort of want to put a challenge out there to all yoga and Pilates businesses, because I see a lot of struggling. I went to my first actually heated yoga class. Vikram.

Vikram.

I went in there and she loved what she was doing. But it was a 2-hour class, an hour and a half, 2-hour class, and I wasn't allowed to leave the door. That was full-on.

Were you allowed to drink water?

I was allowed to drink water, not much though, not much. And, um, it was, it was pretty intense. Yes. And so for a first-time client to that situation, I didn't actually go back because I felt sick.

But there's statistics on that.

It was really bad. Like, then she was a beautiful presenter, she was a really nice person, she knew her stuff. But, I mean, I'm just coming from an outsider, first time. I thought that'd be really good. It was just so intense for me at that stage. I was like, you know, there must be some sort of business strategies you can do. Say, again, have a beginner's class and, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. I know it might not be the teaching of Pilates or the way it's supposed to be done.

Yeah.

But as a marketing strategy, I think there's gotta be better ways. So I just wanna put a challenge out there to actually connect with yourself if you're in that industry and just let's challenge if there is better ways to actually get new clients.

There are, definitely. And I help people with those strategies too. You know, there's a lot of Pilates studios where they insist on having an initial consultation, which is the way it's always been done. And I put my hand up and say, yes, I used to do that. The main reason behind that is for postural assessment and to make sure you're getting into what the client knows and setting up the pelvic floor so it works properly, the breathing. Sure. Look, it is very valid, but one of my clients 6 months ago decided to scrap that. And then they're doing an open house every fortnight with new clients clients coming in. So they're going totally against what all their competitors are doing. They're having an open house. It's every Thursday night between 6 and 6:30.

Half an hour.

It's free. People come in and they get a taste of Pilates.

That's what we want.

They have their conversion rate, which most in the Pilates and yoga world don't even really know what a conversion rate is. So their conversion rate has really gone up, and it's just amazing. From there, then they're booking them into those one-on-one consults.

Excellent. So that's, that's, that is unbelievable. So that's my first You loved it.

I didn't go back.

I've told a few people that was intense. They probably won't go because it's intense. So I know there's— I know we need to bring in some sort of mainstream to get, you know, the people that just want to have a bit of a try, a bit of a—

Try before you buy is definitely— I think there is resistance to that because it's not the way it's been done.

Yeah. I want to shake the boat a bit, that's all.

Yeah. But if you want to be leading in the industry and you want to create a profitable business and you do If you want to be around in a few years' time, that's the time to shake it up a bit. Definitely. Yeah.

Alright, excellent. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Connect with Kylie on Twitter.

Twitter.

Website, what's your website?

PilatesYogaBiz.com.

Excellent. And you'll see us, you'll see her around on Meet Your Fitness Marketing. She'll be doing some blog posts, some articles, some videos. So connect with her and just see what it is. And then, you know, see what lady you might want to connect and go from there.

And

get those free trials in your yoga business, hey?

Definitely.

That's the golden nugget. It's just, it's just turn the heat on for 10 minutes, not for 2 hours.

Yeah, exactly. Great. Thanks, Richard.