Love, Love, Love – Love Is All You Need
All you need is love! And a Valentine Card!
Happy Valentine’s day by the way! Do you like the card the hubster made for me? What a talented chap 
But is love all we really need? We all love to dance, right? We all know that love makes the world go round, but we also need to make a living, pay the rent and buy food
Loving what we do is amazing! As the saying goes:
“If your work is doing what you love, then you will never work a day in your life”
– too true.
But how do we make sure we make a living from it too?
Here’s a few tips:
1. Count the pennies
Don’t bury your head in the sand – face up to your finances. Is that class bringing in enough money to cover the venue hire and the teacher, let alone the publicity materials, the admin etc.?
If it’s not, what can you do about it? Don’t continue doing what you are doing as you will continue getting what you’ve been getting (June Cory quote there!), change things, revamp things, review venue hire, class costs, whether you’ve been spending money on advertising, has it worked for you?
2. Upsell
Can you offer your customers any added benefits? Such as attending other classes that you run. The “did you knows”. Did you know we run amazing birthday parties? Did you know that we run dance sessions within schools? Did you know that we have a new T-shirt design that’s just gone into the shop? Did you know we offer a discounted sibling rate?
3. Look at your ROI
Your Return On Investment. Are you spending money on newspaper ads that you have no idea whether they work or not? Would that money you are spending be better off spent on something more impactful and measurable such as targeted facebook ads for instance. You can target exactly who you are looking for, i.e. women, aged 25-40, with children, living within 10 miles of your dance school, who are interested in dance! Result! And you can set your spending limits so that you know exactly how much you are budgeting AND you can measure the results! Now that’s a RESULT!
What else are you spending out on? And are you getting enough back in return?
4. Negotiate
Negotiate on venue hire – can you get block bookings at a discounted rate. Can you pay in advance for a discounted rate. Can the venue help to market your class?
5. Team Up
Can you work with your local leisure centre and offer to run dance parties for them. It costs them nothing to add your dance parties to their party offer – when a customer books a dance party, they then simply pay you the hourly rate you’ve negotiated with them and Bob’s Your Uncle!
6. Don’t be afraid to say what things cost
People will pay for excellent service. People want to work with people they know, like and trust. Building relationships, trust and delivering the best service you possibly can will ensure that customers book with you and will be happy to pay what you charge. Be proud of what you do!
7. Love
Love dance, love your customers, love your teachers, love what you do and, love yourself. As one teacher said to us recently “Teachers must remember to take time out for themselves too” – which is so right. It is so right, in fact, that we bought ourselves a box of chocolates and some sparkling rosé for Valentines Day! Enjoy!
