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So, you’re thinking about starting a yoga studio? It’s not surprising: many people want to turn their passions into their vocations. Running a new yoga studio isn’t easy – but it can be very rewarding if you put the hard work in.

Not everyone is cut out to run a business in a competitive market and not every market has room for another studio.

Yoga tends to attract creative, peace-loving types – which is one of the reasons so many people love it. However, if you’re going to be making a living from a yoga studio, you need to stay business-minded to succeed. Passion for yoga alone will not pay the bills: you need to be very clear – with yourself and others - that this is a business. Making money from yoga means being good at marketing, making tough business decisions and learning to sell yourself.

We don’t mean “are you in a town with no yoga studios” because those towns are becoming few and far between (although if you do live in one, fantastic - you'll get an instant head start). We need you to work out if there’s room for another one.

Consider:

• Are classes filling up? Do some detective work! Find out how quickly yoga classes in your area reach capacity. Do you have to book ages in advance to get a spot, or are classes rarely full? If it’s the latter, that’s a sign that there might not be room for another yoga studio in town.
• Are all types of yoga covered? Yoga fans will usually find a type of yoga that they prefer: whether that be Ashtanga, Hatha, Hot Yoga or Power Yoga. If a popular type of yoga isn’t currently on offer in your area, consider whether you could offer it.

The process of making a business plan will reveal a myriad of little issues you might not have thought about. You will need a business plan if you want financing for your business, but it’s a very good idea to make one even if you’ve got the cash for start-up.

This might not seem like a big deal – any reasonably large, sport-oriented room will do – but location and comfort will make up a big part of your clients’ decision to return.

• Is it accessible? Will people be able to find you easily? If some of your clients want to walk or cycle to classes, is that realistic?
• Is there parking? This is so important. If your clients have to drive around for ages to find a parking spot they’re unlikely to come back.
• Is it comfortable? Temperature is the big thing here. Is there a working and effective air-conditioning/heating unit? Being too cold or too hot can really affect your enjoyment of a yoga class.

Are you going to have more than one yoga instructor? If it’s just you, then this section is easy. If you want to hire other yoga instructors, then you need to carefully consider your choices. Will you specialise in one sort of yoga, and hire instructors from that discipline? Will you branch out and try to offer several types of yoga? How experienced do you need them to be? Should they be certified? Newly qualified yoga instructors are probably the cheaper option, but an instructor that stumbles over their session might put off new clients. Do you get on with them? This is incredibly important. You will be working together, even if you’re teaching separate classes, and voluntarily entering a business relationship with someone you don’t like is very foolish. Consider the different structures of employment. Will you require staff to be self-employed, or will you employ them through the business? It’s a very good idea to visit an employment lawyer to work out the best option for you.

You can have the most exceptional yoga studio in the world, but nobody will come if you don’t tell them about it!

This is the first thing you need to work out. Will you be targeting young students, mothers, an older crowd, or a mixture of them all? (This last option is an option, as you can sell yourself as an “all walks of life” studio, but it makes it more difficult to target your marketing).

This is necessary nowadays. You can’t rely entirely on offline marketing.

First, build a website. You can do this yourself through easy-to-use tools like WordPress and Wix, or you can pay somebody to make one from scratch. What you can’t do is try to build one from scratch if you don’t have coding and design experience. It will look terrible. Trust us on this. And remember to have a calendar with your class schedule!

Link your website to social media accounts. This is good for Google, and it also gives you the opportunity to branch into the world of social media marketing. Set yourself a budget (small at first) and start experimenting with Facebook and Twitter campaigns. You can specify your target audience (hence the importance of having a target demographic!) and work in a “call to action” (in your case, this is probably booking a class).

Leaflets, newspaper ads and good old-fashioned word of mouth will all be useful tools for you. Leave flyers in any local businesses you’re on good terms with (you can promise to do the same for them) and get your friends and family to tell everyone about your new studio.

Your classes will only be profitable if you have a good base of regular clients. How can you ensure they keep coming back? Mainly, you just have to be (or hire) a competent and engaging yoga instructor. The instructor is much more important to most yoga lovers than anything else is. Lots of people will follow a particularly good instructor from studio to studio if they move!

Consider a loyalty scheme, or bulk lesson buying: reward your clients for committing to several lessons.