The Dance Studio Owner Mindset

As a dance studio owner, one of your main goals is to increase your bottom line. If that statement makes you feel uncomfortable then you may want to rethink owning a business in the first place! There is nothing wrong with making a great profit. As the matter of fact, your bottom line will pretty much dictate what you will be able to do with your studio and most likely will be crucial to the survival of your business. What would happen if your business suffered a financial setback of some sort? Would you be able to work your way through that issue? Do you have a reserve fund for such an issue? Could you use a few more dollars to help you run your business more effectively?  

Let’s face it, a healthy profit means you can do more with your business. A healthy profit means you can do more for yourself. Yes, yourself and there is nothing wrong with that! A healthy profit will reduce your stress levels. A healthy profit means you have a healthy business… PERIOD!

Ok, now that we have gotten that out of the way and you now have the proper mindset ,let’s look at what I recommend that you should consider doing to build your bottom line. Keep in mind that increasing revenue is just one way to build. You should also consider how to decrease your expenses as well. If you tackle both of these you will see a significant increase in your bottom line.

Where to Increase Revenue:

The first place that I recommend you look at is your tuition. I know many dance studio owners who are worried about raising their fees and fear that there will be a big revolt and everyone will leave the studio. I can tell you that in the 37 years I have had my studio, every single year we have made some kind of increase. YES, EVERY SINGLE YEAR! You may want to read that a few times. And 99% of the time no one has said anything. And when they did, it was one of our less desirable customers who have a tendency to complain about everything. Let’s face it, everything has gone up in price. Now, I am not recommending some outrageous price gouging but you should have some increase every year. I believe the best and most lucrative place to start is tuition. Then you can look at costumes, maybe your registration fee or tickets for your recital on other years.

Let’s do some simple math on this for a moment. These numbers may not be anywhere near what you charge but you can get the idea here.

Let’s just say you charge $720 for a 45-week session that comes out to $16 a class

If you went up a modest 5% that would add $36 onto the yearly tuition

$756 for 45-weeks is now $16.80 per class.

Now if someone complains about this you can point that out that yes, our tuition has gone up 80-cent more per class! And if they have an issue with that, then that is their problem, not yours.

What about a 10% increase? That would be $72 more for tuition yearly.

$792 for 45-weeks is now $17.60 per class.  $1.60 more per class. Still a very modest amount. Heck you can’t even go buy a coffee at Starbucks for that!

So, let’s propose that this studio has 200 students. That price increase would represent an additional profit of $14,400. Not bad right? And we know that many of these students will be taking more than one class so that profit will go up substantially because you will use this same formula to increase your revenues no matter how many classes they take.

The key here is that you must not be fearful of raising your fees. I have recommended this to my VIP coaching clients and have spoken about this in my seminars. As far as I have been told, everyone who has done this, has not had any issues or mass defections. Most folks reported that their clients didn’t even remember what they paid the year before! This is a great time of year to think about your fees for next season. Best of all you don’t need to increase your student count to increase your bottom line!

Where to Save Money

During the Covid shutdown and then the restrictions we all had to work through, we started a motto at the studio to find where we could save money that was, “No Stone Unturned”It worked so well that we kept it going. It is incredible how much revenue flows out the door. When you plug or reduce that flow you will be amazed at how much money you will save. You can start with your credit card processing fees. We did this 4 years ago and have saved about $7000 a year. That is $28,000.00 saved over this time frame. You can click on this link to see the company I used and you can use them as well. No matter who you use, it is easy to find out how much you can save. Do a Google search for Credit Card Processing Fees and give the companies you see a call. They will do an audit for you and explain how much money they can save you. Just make sure that their fees will stay at that rate forever. You can also save on your utility bills as well. Google to see where you can save on electric, gas, internet and phone service. We have done this every summer and I can assure you it is well worth the very little time spent doing this research. For more money saving ideas click on this link.

Dance Studio Owners, Get Going with This!

So, there you have it! There is no time like the present! These are simple and easy to implement ideas to increase your bottom line. I have found in my business and with my coaching clients, that increasing the bottom line by $50k or more is a very reasonable and attainable goal. So, let’s get going and start working on this today. I look forward to hearing from you and would love to know how you make out.

Here’s to your success

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