Rewind, Refresh or Restart
How to thrive as as a self-employed Pilates Instructor in a post-COVID world.
I am looking forward to 17th May 2021. I last taught a face to face Pilates class in November 2020 so a return to my community based classes is definitely something to celebrate. With a month still to go, I feel this is the perfect opportunity to take a moment to think about what I want from my business and the classes I deliver. It’s also a great time to ask my clients what they’d like! Do I REWIND back to what I did pre-COVID or just REFRESH what I did, keeping the essence the same? Or perhaps it’s worth considering taking a different path and plan a RESTART with new classes, times, venues or dare I mention it; new prices?
REWIND
It’s actually going to be quite difficult in May to rewind back to the very beginning. For one, classes are still going to have to be socially distanced, with enhanced cleaning, space between clients, ventilation and risk assessments to consider. These are all practical and administrative measures that make a rewind difficult but the other aspect is that the physical and emotional needs of our clients may have changed too which adds another layer of complexity to a rewind back to our old ways.
You may have been fortunate enough to keep clients going with online and on demand content during lockdown but what percentage of them participated this way? A rough look at my numbers shows I had Zoom participation from just over a quarter of my face to face total class numbers. I am not sharing these figures so that others can compare to their own; I am sharing them as they may act as a prompt when it comes to thinking about how you shape your business going forwards. Can you afford to simply rewind back to how things were done before, if a meaningful percentage of your clients want to stay online?
REFRESH
As we venture cautiously towards a lifting of lockdown, there is a general sense of excitement in the air about a return to familiar routines, places and faces. I am no different but I’m also excited about launching into a new phase of my business. The last year has given me the opportunity to explore new areas of learning, to refresh my business and to hone my teaching on new digital platforms. I don’t intend to let any of that go to waste.
NEW RULES are unavoidable as we set up a return to face to face teaching. On the paperwork front, we have risk assessments to fill for each venue we teach in and pre-exercise questionnaires to revise. We will also need to be clear for our clients about what they can expect when they turn up for a class with us. Setting out clear expectations will give clients a reassurance that you have thoroughly thought through a return to class with everyone’s safety and adherence to guidelines in place. I have a page on my website that outlines what clients need to bring to class, what I provide, the spacing in class, sanitising measures, mask wearing, booking systems and payments. Being organised and transparent is a great way to build confidence in you as a professional.
NEW VENUES have been hard to come by in my neck of the woods over the last few years. There have been long standing teachers who have booked the same venues and times for years and have excellent relationships with the community venue organisers. I’ve been tenacious and polite though and bided my time. Every so often over the last few years, I’ve asked venues if they have any availability for me to book a regular slot. When the answer has been “no”, I’ve been polite and asked to be kept on file. When lockdown was temporarily lifted at the end of 2020, I managed to get some new venues and offered different times to suit me and what the venue could offer. I worked on the basis that it was temporary but as long as everyone understood this, why not be flexible and just get back to it. The classes worked brilliantly. Over two months, I filled the venues with guideline distance+ (3m instead of 2m); used Bookwhen to manage the bookings and asked people to bring their own mats.
So, as we move towards the 17th May restart, I’m in the process of setting up Bookwhen again with new classes and venues. New venues? Yep, those politely persistent emails paid off and I’ve got some new venues. Is there a flipside to this? Yes, some of the temporary times and days that I had in 2020 are no longer available; school groups are returning to community venues I teach in and so I’m grabbing the opportunity to change things around to suit my personal timetable too. Every cloud……
NEW CLASSES were something I’ve steered away from over the last few years. I’ve stuck with the tried and tested formula of beginner and intermediate group mat Pilates classes and some 1:1. But back in 2019 I’d started to explore yoga and mindfulness and was enjoying it. I was intrigued to see if any of my existing clients might be interested in a couple of new types of class and whipped up a bespoke survey. The survey listed all the venues and times I hoped to launch from May and asked what classes people might be interested in. Well, I had really good engagement/response levels and the results have now given me a bit of a dilemma. Whilst the majority of clients would like me to run my core classes, i.e beginner and intermediate Pilates as before, there is a significant proportion interested in the other classes I mooted. As my husband always says, these are good problems to have.
NEW TECH and the use of it has been unavoidable during lockdown. Like so many of us movement and fitness professionals, we’ve diversified our teaching using on-demand video software such as YouTube and online live software such as Zoom. I think i’ve come up with a plan that meets the needs of existing and potentially new clients. Instead of neatly packaging up my experience and learning from the last year and popping it into a cupboard marked ‘COVID — do not open’, I am going to look to offer my core lessons in person as usual but to offer my new classes online, either on-demand of online -live. The way I look at it, it’s a blended offering to ensure I maximise my reach without diluting the quality of what I teach.
NEW PRICES. Well, I’ve said it now. Quite a few of my colleagues who were teaching online during lockdown tied themselves up in knots about what to charge. After the first few months, there was a fair amount of chatter amongst us all comparing charges and it was clear that for some, they were not making enough to cover realistic costs but that they didn’t feel they could change their prices. I took the view from the outset that if a face to face class was £x then my Zoom classes would be -25% less. I came to that pricing by looking at my costs including monthly upgraded Zoom and adding a reality check. I’ve always tried to be realistic about my charges, offering smaller classes which means i’ve never sought to be the cheapest. Whilst I love what I do and am passionate about it, I am a business and need to charge appropriately and in return deliver quality, fun, safe, engaging content for my clients.
The brief September - October interlude in 2020 that allowed us to teach face to face, also gave me an opportunity to use a booking and payment system to ensure I could be as contactless as possible. I used Bookwhen which worked really well for me and gave the option for clients to buy single class passes or blocks of 5 or 10 at a discount. My prices were increased from pre-COVID times. I was transparent as to why this was; places were limited in the venues I was teaching in as there was a need for increased space. More time and cost was needed to cover increased hygiene measures as well as admin and booking software costs. I know that there is a fair bit of anguish out there at the moment about what to charge as we go forwards, however, this really is an opportunity to do the maths and work out what you need to charge. It’s all too easy to revert back to old prices and to compare yourself to what others in your area are charging but this is a small window when you can clearly evaluate your costs and factor in your time to set your prices accordingly.
I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER
I am a planning fiend. I get a kick out of being organised and now that we’ve finally got some dates I can plan around, I feel energised and can’t wait to start face to face teaching again. Taking the time to reflect on what has worked well and not so well for me in the past and over lockdown, combined with asking my amazingly supportive clients what they’d like to see has given me some new ideas and directions to explore.
These windows of opportunity to rethink your business don’t come along very often, so seize this chance to think about how you want to take your business forward.
Breathe, take a moment and go for it!
“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time.”
― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled
