Set up (Professional) Shop
Before you lead a yoga class, let’s make sure we’re professionally covered from all angles. Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready. Best place to start is to look professional on paper and be able to take payments immediately:
Consider creating an Sole Proprietor LLC for your business
File for an EIN - very easy, takes 2 seconds
Open a business bank account
Keep a completed 1099 form on your computer or google drive so you dont have to fill one out every time somebody asks
Register your business with the secretary of state
Create a Venmo and Zelle account (and maybe a Paypal account for safe measure)
Create an Eventbrite account
Launch your Website (the squarespace + acuity + mailing list combo is a great place to start if you have the budget; note you will need to set up a Stripe account as well)
Decide how you’re going to keep your payments and invoices organized for tax purposes (Quickbooks? Honeybook? Notion? Excel spreadsheet? Random notebook?)
Update your LinkedIn profile if you have one
Upgrade your Gmail - if you have the budget, a hello@yourname.com is always a good look
Get Liability Insurance - many studios and venues will require you to have this before you step into their space
Create a liability form for your students to sign before taking your class
Honorable Mention: Register with Yoga Alliance if you feel like it. Or don’t, depending on what you heard. It’s not required for any type of certification, so whatever you feel called to do.
I won’t go into too much detail here because there’s always Google but if you’d like more hands-on help setting up shop, feel free to schedule a 1:1 Wellness Design Session with me and we can go more in depth!
Curate a Free Class (in Exchange for Content)
Rent a location or go outside (park, beach, lake, etc) if the weather is nice and lead a free yoga class open to anyone. The caveat: all attendees agree to be a part of your content! Grab a friend to help you take as many video clips and photos as you can (of you, the class, adjustments, poses, laughs, chatting, everything!) and then use and re-use your content across multiple platforms to help establish you as a yoga teacher + market upcoming classes. Eventbrite is a great place to list free classes for people who will actually come. As a backup, reach out to your friends personally and ask them to show up, even if they don’t “do yoga”. Coming to your free class is any easy way to support, so they will most likely show up. Try a Saturday at 10am or a Wed evening at 6:30pm for the best turn out.
Bonus tip: although the class is free for attendees, require online registration so that you can collect their emails. Then you can contact them directly when you land your first studio job! Double bonus: you get to practice teach without the pressure.
Book a Branding Photography Session
Nothing says ‘i do this for a living’ like professional brand photos. Hire a branding photographer, find the perfect location (or rent a wellness studio for an hour if there’s one near you), create a shotlist, and take website-worthy images that show off your personality + draw your target market into your world. You can use these images for your website, IG cover photos, carousel posts, headshots to send along with your resume to studios, there’s no world in which having professional brand images on hand isn’t a good idea. If you can’t afford a full strategized shoot, look for photographers who are offering “mini” or “headshot” sessions in the meantime until you can do a fully loaded branding session.
Start a Mailing List
For solopreneurs (or any business really), emails are a lifeline. Mailing list subscribers are people who intentionally want to know what you have going on, not just someone whose feed you randomly appeared on. Add a link to your mailing list in your email signature, drop a sign up form in your bio link, add it to the footer of your webpage, set up a qr code flyer at your irl events, just make sure its very apparent that you have a mailing list and that you want people on it. Another great way to accumulate emails can be through class registrations, raffle signups, digital downloads, website contact form, etc. If there is an option to collect an email, do it. And of course once you have a mailing list, send newsletters regularly so you stay top of mind.
Fun fact: they say it takes like 9 impressions before someone actually buys the ticket, purchases the course, registers for the class, etc. So send newsletters regularly even if if feels like noone is reading them.
Launch Your Wellness Website
Social media is great until people either can’t find you or dont take you seriously because your handle is ‘bumblebeeeee383043’. I am a huge advocate of having your own little internet home that you can design, edit and add to whenever you want (also its the perfect place to house those pretty pictures you took during your branding session). a 40-character bio is cool but an enchanting home page, an ‘about me’ that sums you up as a real person + lists your superpowers in depth, a place for people to book you or your classes directly, take payments, house your mailing list, and you want to be searchable on google, right? You need a website for that. If you don’t know how to design a website try my friends over at GoLive, they have amazing templates.
Start a YouTube Yoga Channel
Tons of people want to do their yoga from the comfort of their own living room, so why not be one of the people that show up in their search? Start a youtube channel and hit record! No studio experience necessary. You can film from your own home, rent an aesthetic studio, or find a beautiful location in nature that adds an extra layer of calm. People love yoga and stretch videos that they can do in the morning or evening so be sure to add those keywords to your video titles whenever it makes sense. Re-post clips to your other socials so that no matter where people find you they can get to your youtube page. Also another great way to practice teach.
Bonus: Add your videos to yourrrr….website! More views from people who found you on google! See how that works?
Start a new IG that is yoga-centered
We’ve all been on Instagram since 2010 and at this point the algorithm probably has no idea where to put you. So starting a new page specifically dedicated to you as a yogi is a great move. Not only will people understand what your brand is about right away but it will help the algorithm know whose feed to place you on based on your viewers’ interests. Think of this new page as an extension of your website. Drop a mini flow, your weekly teaching schedule, special events, show off a balancing pose, share the best books for yogis, etc. An instagram that is dedicated to a particular interest is so much easier to follow along with, especially for people who don’t know you IRL. After you start your new IG, be sure to follow some favorite accounts that are also yoga-centered (helps your feed and algorithm as well). Once you’ve built up your feed a bit you can start to incorporate more personal life/non-yoga things so that your audience can know a little about who you are outside of yoga, but always keep the main thing the main thing.
Create a Signature Flow
And by signature i mean a flow you can pull out of your back pocket anytime, anywhere. When you have a set flow memorized, it eliminates that feeling of just being unprepared, and that’s half the battle of getting up and teaching as a new instructor. Curate a flow that’s comfortable enough for you to teach over and over again without second guessing your qualifications. And once you feel good with that one, move on to curating new flows or remixing the one you’ve already got.
Start before you feel ready
A log of certified yoga teachers choose not to begin teaching right away because they still don’t feel qualified enough to teach. Look. If you’re just nervous, that’s one thing but if you finished your 200 hours, you’re qualified to teach, so let’s drop that story. Start with gentle or hatha if you’re still getting used to cueing efficiently and/or still getting used to teaching without demoing every pose.