Starting your yoga business with a detailed business plan to guide you can jumpstart your journey to success. Before diving right into offering classes and building your client list, it's important to organise all of your goals, strategies, and plans in one place to keep you on track and ensure you are not overlooking any valuable factors that can make your business succeed.
Having a business plan for your yoga studio can help you identify key target markets, what is lacking in your local area that your business can fulfil the needs of, what types of services to offer and how, and how to afford it all and make an income. In this guide, you'll learn every detail and section your yoga business plan should entail and how to write a solid plan that will entice your readers and set you up on the path for a successful yoga business. Let's get started.
A business plan is a written document that includes all of the necessary information about your business, strategies and financing. Typically business plans at least 10-20 pages in length, with sections dedicated to goals, strategies, your mission, where your classes and services will be held, your financial obligations and requirements, where you will operate, and how you will grow your business including marketing strategies.
While your business plan serves as a roadmap for you to help you monitor your growth and strategy success, it also gives potential influential players for your business such as banks, investors, property owners and landlords, and potential business partners a way to learn about your business and assess its potential in the market.
You want your plan to be clear and easy to read and digest, professional and informative, and encourage your reader to want to get involved in your business in some way, whether as a customer, investor, or partner, anyway, that can support your new venture and its success.
If you're wondering if it is really even necessary to document your initial goals and ideals for your business when they can grow and expand over time, and the answer is yes. A well-written business plan shows that you are legitimate and intend to run a successful operation no matter how short or long it takes to achieve what you have set out to in your plan. Compiling your goals and objectives will help you identify if there are any gaps in your plan and what you need to do to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. Have a business plan, and set yourself on the roadway to success. Forgo a business plan, and end up making mistakes that could prove irreparable for your business in the future.
While all businesses will use a similar structure for their plan, each plan is unique and should focus on how you stand out and why your business is necessary for the market. If you want your new yoga business to earn value and be known as a credible studio from the moment you launch and help you make the best decisions for your studio and business's present and future, you need a business plan.
Over time as your business grows, your business plan will also grow and evolve, but the contents and what needs to be included in your plan will remain the same. All business plans must include the following sections:
Each of these topics will include its own section in your plan with details and a thorough explanation for each. Even if as a new owner you don't have all the answers for every single section, that's ok. What business plan readers really want to know is how you will rise to meet the expectations and demand of your immediate and larger market, the industry, and what makes you different from businesses already offering similar services.
Even if some of the things you mention in your business plan are future items, your readers will appreciate that you have thought ahead and are thinking big picture as well as what is necessary to get you up and running and fully operational in the now. With evidence to support you, well thought out arguments and claims, not only will your readers support you, but you'll have an excellent resource to guide you through the process of being a business owner and managing your yoga business.
To get started on writing your business plan, here is a breakdown of the information and details to include in each of the necessary sections:
The first section of your business plan is the executive summary, a synopsis of your entire plan and a brief description of the points and topics to be discussed in the upcoming sections. Your executive summary should clearly state what will be covered in each section with 2-3 sentences on each, and a clear statement about your goals, strategies, market, and projections that will be elaborated on in each section.
Your readers should be able to clearly identify what your full plan of action is for launching your business and the costs you will require in order to move forward and get started. Remember that this section should be neat and concise and every point can be expanded later on in your plan in the appropriate sections.
One of the main topics to be discussed in your executive summary is your mission statement. Your mission statement is the purpose and reason your business exists, who you are serving, and how you will achieve your mission. For example,
TeamUp's mission is: to empower fitness businesses and to provide the best management software for fitness studios, boxes, and gyms.
In our statement you clearly see what we want to do: provide fitness businesses with the best and empower them, for who: fitness studios, boxes, and gyms, and how: with the best management software.
A reader wants to be able to read your mission statement and know exactly who you are speaking to and for. Your mission statement doesn't have to be flawless but it should effectively communicate to your readers and future customers, the business you want to be for them. You can find some inspiration from these great mission statement examples.
In the industry analysis section of your business plan, you will share your research and knowledge of the yoga industry. Here you will discuss your business in relation to the industry, market, and what has influenced you to launch a yoga business. Imagine your reader knows nothing about yoga. What would you write to inspire them to take interest in your business and believe it can make a difference in comparison to the already existing yoga businesses. Include some history, how the industry has impacted you, discuss trends, and use factual data to support your desire to joining the market.
Your competitor analysis supports your industry analysis. In this section, you'll go into more depth on how you offer from other yoga businesses in your marketplace, both local and on a larger scale. Whether you are running your own online, physical or on the go business, in a studio, from home, these factors play a role in how you differ from others and it's important to show your readers you know it. Explain how your business makes you unique and differs from what is already established and available.
A good way to make this section very digestible to your readers is to make stark comparisons and pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, what you offer versus what your competitors offer. Do some research and give concrete examples to support your differences and even your similarities.
Your customer analysis should discuss everything your reader needs to know about the types of clients and customers you desire to attract and why they are the perfect type of person suited for your business. Who are they? How do they spend their disposable income? What is their demographic? What is their profession? Creating profiles for your customers real or fictitious can give your readers a good idea of how you will find and attract business. It will also help remind you who your ideal client is and why you should focus your efforts on finding those clients for your business as opposed to anyone. Your ideal clients are the clients best suited for your business and who will benefit most from your services. The readers of your business plan will appreciate that you are confident you know who this person is and how to find them in the market.
Understanding and implementing marketing strategies is a vital part of growing your business and something your readers will definitely looking for some good insight on. Discussing concrete strategies that you intend to put in place to attract new customers, grow your business, gain exposure for your services, and retain customers can help you stay on track and make sure you achieve your goals. Explain how you plan to use these strategies to make a splash in the market and why using these strategies a customer would choose your business over another. Why do these techniques work to grow and establish a successful business and how will it affect your studio?
Include popular market trends and strategies that are already successful and you know will work for your business, but also get creative and consider new ideas that have yet to be tried and tested. You'll want to get as specific as possible and even if a strategy doesn't work once in motion, you'll be able to explain and support why that didn't work and how you'll pivot to something different. Explain what you want to achieve and how and your readers will respond with their support.
Finally, the products and services section. What services will you offer? Classes, appointments, outdoor yoga boot camps, you name it, this is where you need to dig deep and dive into everything your reader needs to know about what your customers will gain by being a member of your business or your client. Share your experience here, why you want to teach this type of yoga over another or why another style of yoga or why you are choosing to meet with clients one on one as opposed to offering classes in a group style.
All of the information you want to share about your classes or appointments, how you will offer and deliver these services and any type of membership or subscription model you intend to offer your customers to attend classes should be detailed here. You will also want to include any products you intend to sell or offer too that will contribute to the customer experience and your core services, as well as any additional expenses you'll have to offer your services, such as yoga studio management software to organise your classes, CRM, and payments.
In the financial section of your business plan, it's time to talk money. In this section, your readers want to know all about how much you intend to earn and charge for your business. How much will your classes be, will you offer one on one private yoga lessons, what costs do you foresee needing to cover in your first year, and so on. Having a good idea of your expected or forecasted revenue and how you will use that revenue to earn an income, pay for expenses, maintain your business, and grow it will help readers better understand if you have the financial support and weight to last. It will also help them identify what size loan or investment you would need in order to run your business. You will also need to break down your budgets, how you plan to spend and save on a small period basis as well as into the future, and how marketing, targeting, and operations equate into your budget and expenses.
Start-up costs for a new yoga can quickly increase, especially when taking rent or a mortgage into consideration. Considering whether you will run your business online, rent from an existing studio, rent a space to convert into a studio, or purchase your own facility should all be discussed and detailed in this section of your document. Giving your investors and readers a strong idea of where and how you will run your business will help them make a better analysation of the market and the likelihood of your business surviving and thriving.
Taking into account that your readers have launched businesses before or are in the business of helping people launch their own. They'll know whether or not your business will be able to stand on its own feet in a certain location or afford a certain price for the facility, but no one knows you or what you can offer your customers as you do. Include logistics, what you need in order to open a studio or rent a space, and how you intend to reach your customers and them you. You could even go as far as to state how much of your forecasted revenue will be dedicated to paying for your location and facility costs.
In the management team section, you will detail your plan to hire staff or other teachers. Even if you do not plan on hiring additional team members during the initial stages of launching your studio, stating whether or not you intend to will help investors and readers consider the expenses and financial needs you will have when you do. You will include details regarding salary, where and how you will recruit, the positions you would like to fill, and where your staff and teachers will work from (this information helps if your business is online or working from a facility such as a physical studio).
Although launching a yoga studio, writing a business plan, organising your finances, and getting all the pieces to come together might seem like a large challenge, with the proper organisation, planning, and strategising you have everything you need to achieve your goal. With your business plan in hand to guide you and lessons to learn along the way, you're well on your way to establishing a successful yoga business. All you have to do is get started.
To learn more about launching a yoga business with TeamUp, check out our guides here:
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