STEP 3
Develop a marketing and PR plan
Mentor: Ava Taylor, founder and CEO of YAMA TalentToday’s world of yoga has seen the rise of yoga teachers
who have tapped into their entrepreneurial instincts to
create entire brands around their teaching styles and phi-
losophies. And behind some of those big names is Ava
Taylor, founder and CEO of YAMA (Yoga Artist Manage-
ment Agency) Talent, helping to guide the way. Over the
past decade, this marketing and PR pro has helped studios,
brands, and teachers like Chelsea Jackson Roberts, Sadie
Nardini, Kristin McGee, Faith Hunter, Raghunath, and
Leslie Kaminoff increase their relevance in the yoga space.
One thing she knows that yogis tend to struggle with is
toggling between the heartfelt, gentle world of yoga and the
colder, cut-and-dry business
world. “Yogis often love their
jobs too much, which causes
them to sometimes make
poor decisions, be overly
lenient, take things person-
ally, have poor boundaries,
and not see things objec-
tively,” says Taylor. Yogis
can be experts at emotional
decision making, which
can cause them to overreact
and have diffi culty looking at
facts, she says. “This can
make it hard to do what has
to be done to make the busi-
ness run well. A lot of new
studio owners think that
running a business is going to be easy, or that if you’re doing
everything right, that everyone will like you. But owning
a business, while fulfi lling, is all-consuming and diffi cult.”
Thankfully, Hendricks has a strong business and fi nan-
cial background, but to be successful, she and Galicinao
will also need to become comfortable with the reality
that they’re also now sales people and that they are selling
a service that needs to be clearly packaged, marketed,
and sold on a consistent basis. “They need to be vocal and
actively participate in each level of their marketing. That
means networking, meet and greets, giving out cards or
fl yers, running promotions, writing content for email mar-
keting, giving incentives for referrals, and more,” Taylor
says. And posting on social media will be crucial, but they
shouldn’t rely too heavily on it. “It’s an inexpensive way to
Crunch the numbers
To further help the mentees prepare for their yoga business,
we turned to Brent Kessel, founder of Abacus Wealth Partners
in Santa Monica, California, who frequently works with yogis
and leads workshops on starting a studio. Here, he shares his
best tips for creating a strong fi nancial plan.
Decide whether to categorize staff as independent
contractors or employees. Guidelines vary by state, but
in California, the general guidance is that if you control the
schedule and how your staff does the work, they are employ-
ees. The penalty for not withholding payroll taxes is generally
50 percent of the amount that should have been withheld,
so always check with an employment attorney or CPA.
Register as a Limited Liability Company, which Galicinao and
Hendricks have done with MindShift Studio, LLC. This shields
you from personal liability if the business has legal trouble.
Make sure you have a solid business plan and strong
competitor analysis with year-to-year fi nancial projections
for at least three years out.
Assume that revenue will take longer than you think,
because all kinds of things can happen, from teachers wanting
more money than you’d predicted to students not renewing
their memberships. Make allowances in your projected budget
for lower revenue and higher expenses than you expect.
It’s OK to take other people’s money. Asking for investments
from others—be it a bank or people you know—requires you
to answer the hard questions they will ask (“How will you get
good teachers?”; “How will you compete in your town—which
is a crowded market as is?”) in order to ensure that they will
get a return on their investments. If you use your own money,
it’s all too easy to skip some of these steps.
Pay yourself a market-rate salary. Founders often forgo
this in order to save money, but you should always pay your-
self what you would pay someone else to do what you
do, especially since
you may have to at
some point (what if
you get sick?). Plan
for that salary in your
projection.continued on page 8FROM TOP: JOELONGOPHOTOGRAPHY; JUSTYNA JAWORSKAYOGAJOURNAL.COM / 6 / FEBRUARY 2018
Brent KesselAva Taylor