Yearly planning is an important part of a kids yoga business. Planning starts with looking back on what worked, what didn’t, and what you will do differently next year. Here’s a business review from Young Yoga Masters you can use for inspiration.

I have a yearly planning ritual. Everything I do in my business happens first with a wall full of post-it notes and a journal full of planning notes. Eventually a plan takes shape for the year ahead.

End of year might be a quiet time to reflect, so if the time feels right, take whatever inspiration you can from this summary to help you with your own conscious business planning.

5 Highlights from 2023 at Young Yoga Masters

1. 12 Hours of Free Kids Yoga Teacher Training!
   
   January: Mindful Planning for Kids Yoga Teachers
   February: Planning Checklist for Spring/March Break Camps/Classes
   March: How to Become a Kids Yoga Teacher Q + A
   April: Trade Show Booth Results and Putting Yourself Out There
   May: All Abilities Yoga with the Yoga Alphabet
   June: Ask Me Anything (Teen Yoga, How to Keep Kids Attention)
   July: New Yoga Alliance Requirements for Kids Yoga Teacher Training
   August: How to Support and Include Trans and Gender-Diverse Students in Your Yoga Class
   September: Teen Yoga Leadership Program
   October: Halloween Yoga Obstacle Course Lesson Plan
   November: Mindful Family Yoga Lesson Plan
   December: How to Host a Yoga Party at End of Year or Series
   
   Committing to this free training each month has created content for the micro Continuing Education courses coming in 2024. If you can choose a manageable schedule and format to help you create content, go for it!
   
   
2. Survey and Mail Out: My spring survey got over 90 responses and I mailed Yoga Alphabet Cards as a Thank You! I got important feedback to plan for the year ahead and went another year without giving my marketing budget to Meta or Google. There are a lot of ways to put yourself out there that don’t involve social media.
   
3. Training Scholarships and Cohorts: We provided 16 Partial Scholarships and saw over 40 kids yoga teachers graduate from the training. Making the offerings accessible led to more representation in our training community, and partial scholarships became an income stream for the business from people that wouldn’t be able to take the training.
   
4. Yoga Alliance (YA) Training Updates: I spent far too much time wondering about the 2024 training provisions. The highlight was the actual announcement from YA, waiting till August for it was a low-light. I was happy self-paced training is still allowed because so many students want it. I was also pleased with the real-time training required because I enjoy the connection and personal aspect as a trainer. Finally, I liked that schools have the choice to offer real-time training either in-person or online. Overall, I liked the direction YA took with training and the move away from temporary training provisions.
   
5. Personal Business Support for Me: I decided to join The Impact Club last December for business support. Little did I know that Mado herself, podcast host at the Yoga Teacher Resource, would encourage me to open up a membership site! Getting live support was essential for my business growth and enjoyment this year. You can listen to Mado’s advice in the live on-air coaching call I had with her here.
   

3 Low-lights of 2023

1. In-Person and Real-time Training Flop: In the spring of 2023, I advertised 3 training formats (in-person, real-time, and self-paced) and two out of three flopped. People asked for in-person training, but were not willing to pay the extra cost and no one signed up for the in-person. A couple signed up for real-time on zoom, but not enough to run it. The majority wanted self-paced. It hurt to lose the time I invested in planning the schedules, sales pages, graphics, and emails only to cancel them. However, this is not the first time I’ve had a flop in my business and probably won’t be the last. At least I can put the question of in-person training to rest for 2024.
   
2. Cost Cutting: Like many yoga teachers and trainers, my business has been suffered with COVID changes. I even considered getting another job at one point. After 20+ years of self-employment I’ve learned ways to weather business storms. 2023 had me combing thorough my expenses and making some hard cuts. The hardest was letting go of my virtual assistants. Hopefully, I’ll be able to buy back some of my time and get support again in 2024. For now though, it was a relief to reduce costs and still have a business.
   
3. My Training Stolen: The final low-light is one I’ve been sitting on for weeks, while I figure out how to approach it. A graduate of my Children’s Yoga School (RCYS) training has started their own RCYS, that’s to be expected. But in their training preview, my training manual has been copied line for line. That was really disappointing! The entire training is not the same, I can see that from the outline, but I do wonder how much of my material is copied behind the paywall. I’m sitting with this one till I figure out how to approach it. If you have any suggestions leave them in the comments.

Lessons Learned

1. Risk Management: When something is risky, take steps to reduce the amount of risk. For example, the venue for the in-person training required a deposit 2 months before the event. To reduce my risk, I advertised a super-early registration deadline 4 months before the event, timed for when the deposit was due. When no registrations came in, I moved quickly and cancelled the training, without losing a deposit on the venue. Plus the venue still had time to get another booking. Lesson learned: Reduce risk where ever possible.
   
2. Pivot Quickly: Planning is especially difficult after the COVID lock downs, it’s taught me to pivot quickly. I used the feedback from the survey and registrations to pivot my business. Lesson Learned: Being unattached and flexible let’s you move quickly in business and saves you a lot of frustration and struggle.
   
3. Just-In-Time Planning: Have you ever heard of PRE-crastination? It’s kinda the opposite of procrastinating. It’s when you plan things too far in advance you end up doing unnecessary work or having to re-do work because of new info/circumstances. I don’t want to procrastinate, but I was grateful I hadn’t done more work than necessary for the training that got cancelled. Lesson Learned: Don’t overplan. Plan Just-in-time to create space for input to come in before you do the work. I’m exploring this Just-In-Time Teaching approach for the Mastermind Circle. You’ll see more about it in my plans for 2024.

Kids Yoga Plans for 2024

Stay tuned for the Kids Yoga Plans for 2024 coming in the next blog post.