Yoga Retreat Mania!

Yoga Retreat Mania!

Yoga retreat mania has hit the yoga scene like an avalanche! And let me tell you why I think this is a great thing… but a double-edged sword.

First of all, I love yoga retreats. I have led them for close to a decade and they never cease to impress me with the quality of amazing people who come together. Retreats are a way for you, the teacher, to affect your students in a much bigger way and in usually gorgeous locations. They also provide a bigger income but before setting anything up please take the time to assess where you are in your practice as a teacher and leader. I suggest you do some soul searching as I don’t want you to set up a retreat and it not meet your expectations.

Yoga retreats gone wrong…

Not only is taking people on an adventure a huge responsibility but the planning process, if not done correctly, can leave gaps in your retreat that could possibly make your life challenging.

I not only have heard of disasters when planning the retreat but also during. This leaves a really bad taste in your participant’s minds and can sour your reputation, to say the least.

Let’s go through a laundry list of things you will need before you even get there:

  1. Where & When
  2. Retreat title & theme (purpose)
  3. Style of retreat (training or fun)
  4. Who do you want to have on the retreat?
  5. How many participants do you want?
  6. Solo or co-taught?
  7. Why would people come (benefits & outcomes)
  8. Landing page
  9. Pricing
  10. Sales strategy
  11. Location (securing the venue)
  12. Marketing

I go into it much deeper in THIS ARTICLE

The Bright Side

Don’t worry! I know that seems like a LOT but the payoff is so sweet. This is why having a plan and a guide is so important as it will allow you to get to your destination happy. Here is one super important tip you want to always be conscious of- don’t book out an entire center without having some for sure YES clients first. This means you had conversations with people, you did your legwork, you even took deposits. YES you took deposits even before sending deposits to the center. I have done this in my last 2 retreats and worked amazingly. Have the right conversations with possible locations and ask them to hold the dates for you at no charge or maybe a small fee while you get your people.

Apart from this, your mental capacity for planning should be in for the big vision. Let’s say you project a $3500 profit from having 7 people attend the retreat for 5 days. Is this what you would make normally in 5 days doing your classes and possible side gig? If it isn’t, then, create time to plan and get all your ducks in a row. Having this foresight to larger income will put things into perspective nicely.

Is leading a yoga retreat right for me?

Here is where I can’t tell you yes or no, but I can definitely give you more insight into qualities of a leader. If you connect to some of these, then most likely you are on your way. Another thing is having enough material to offer during your retreat (and remember it’s not enough to just teach a couple classes a day… this is mediocre). Lead people to an experience. Help them uncover or re-discover something (your specialty). Have the boldness of stepping into your leadership and guiding from the heart with the full knowledge that you are there to serve on many levels.

Qualities of a leader:

  1. Honest
  2. Vulnerable
  3. Authentic
  4. Flexible
  5. Resourceful
  6. Deep listening
  7. Creative
  8. Supportive
  9. Intelligent
  10. Ability to delegate
  11. Big vision
  12. Caring
  13. Kind
  14. Fun
  15. Speaks the unspoken

End result

Not only will you feel happy you planned correctly and took the right steps, but your retreat will be smooth sailing. I really can’t stress enough people who are leading retreats want to offer the best experience with quality teaching, special attention to details, good communication and extreme awareness to your students needs (the spoken and unspoken). The more retreats there are, the bigger reason why you should be the BEST and most special one. Doing that will help you rise above, cut through the clutter and feel authentic that you are giving the best of you.

 

My newsletter and open rates… why do I need to know?

Newsletter hell.

Have you asked yourself this question before? Are you stuck trying to see what cool stuff you send in your newsletter? I know. I have been there. I have been naughty and not sent my newsletter because I had no idea what to send! You know I had a studio for a long time and we had to send weekly newsletters with all the cool stuff going on – arm balance class, workshop, teacher training. BUY! BUY! BUY!

All we wanted to do was sell events and get people interested. Guess what, at some point the newsletter consisted of the same shit every week because we either didn’t have that many events or they were in advance so we needed to send something right?

So annoying.

Yes, this is exactly what it turned into. An annoying task with absolutely no excitement other than maybe making a cool little artwork for the newsletter event. Woohoo. What started happening is that our open rates were low. People weren’t clicking or signing up. People would come to the events, yes of course, but because of the of the interaction at the studio or at the front desk. So few would pre-register making it even more stressful and honestly annoying.

What changed???

I had a vague idea of email marketing a few years back. I knew we needed to collect emails and then send newsletters. That was about it. NOT what I know now. Have you ever said to yourself “If I knew then what I know now…” Well let’s focus on what I know now, vs, what I knew then since it wasn’t that useful.

After taking many courses on marketing and rubbing elbows with some pretty intelligent and successful people, I realized everything I was doing was moving people away from clicking open. Because they were constantly getting yelled at with sign up, events, retreat and nothing else, they had no motivation. No bait as some say.

They were bored of not getting value.

I use this word value like the elephant in the room. It’s huge, it’s sitting there, but we ignore it. Poor elephant. I was scared of giving people FREE information in my newsletters! I just wanted to them sign up for the arm balance workshop, so why would giving them a video about arm balance be beneficial.

The hook.

That arm balance video was my free teaser. Was my lure to get them hooked. VALUE. I offered a video tip on how to get into crow but I didn’t give them a 2 hour long workshop in the email. What it did was spark the interest of the reader to want to learn more, easier and more efficient ways to do arm balances. Do you get it? Yup. This was the magic touch. Tease them with valuable info that they can take with them on their journey. Maybe you are really excited about offering a tantra workshop- well write a really cool article with awesome information about tantra. You aren’t giving away the whole pie. You are only giving them valuable tips to show you are a credible source to make them say, “WOW, that was amazing and I learned so much I want more!!!”

You get it?

Well, this is your time to turn around these email campaigns and get some interaction! Instead of little opens, I get replies from people saying thanks so much, that was exactly what I needed and more! It feels so good to know I can help via one video, audio or blog post.

Try it out!

On your next newsletter try it out and see what happens. Get some catchy titles, get creative, add your voice in the writing so it feels authentic and powerful. And guess what? You don’t always need to sell something!!! So cool right? Give and you might receive, but give anyways. As a yogi hearted business minded human you know it feels right to give from the heart… and even better your clients will feel it too.

Namaste!