Yoga Studio Websites We Love

{Updated January, 2019}

We write a lot about the various features we offer, how they're designed to help you with your business, and in particular the web and mobile experience you can create. And when I talk with our customers and potential customers, one of the things we most often discuss is the layout and structure of their websites. So I was thinking it would be nice to show some examples of websites we love.

JaiRhythm Yoga

I've never meet the people over at JaiRhythm, but I already feel like I know them through their website. They have awesome HD surf videos highlighting their Soul Surfer class, loads of pictures of their students and their community, and clear pricing accompanied by good copy describing the classes. One of Tula’s earliest customer’s

Yess Yoga Studio

I love the clean layout, crystal clear navigation, beautiful studio photos and the way in which they leverage all of Tula’s widgets. Their calendar page is perfect and they communicate the warmth and openness of the studio with great writing and friendly photos. Their pricing page clearly outlines a handful of options and they don’t overwhelm students with choices. If you’re looking for website inspiration, definitely check them out.

Tula Yoga Studio

Okay we’re a little biased here as this is Maile’s studio! With clear navigation, loads of special events, and clear pricing it’s designed with intention and leverages all the current power of Tula Software. With separate pages private appointment bookings, an explainer page for virtual audio attendances, a dedicated account management page and more the site is a “full” site with a lot of pages, but designed with a drill-down menu that makes it easy and clean to navigate.

Island Yoga

The home yoga studio of Rachel Brathen, aka yoga_girl on instagram, the site works to instantly bring the visitor into their Aruba location. With big images of their studio, cafe, and studio beach location, you’re quickly drawn to explore more. With a deep menu linking to a number of retreats, events, teacher trainings and more the site does a good job of showcasing both the individual studio as well as the larger offerings provided by Rachel and the other companies and organizations she runs.

Flower City Yoga

With a great landing page that makes it clear their studio is for everyone, they make it easy to jump to view their schedule and intro pack for new visitors. What I love most is their focus on the students. Images of students, testimonials by students, and a site designed and built with the understanding that it’ll be visited by students. I point this out specifically because often the focus of a site can turn to the teachers, which is great, but it’s refreshing to see so much emphasis on the students. And as with all the others, they have a clear menu with an easy path to their calendars, purchase forms and account pages.

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If you're looking for ideas and inspiration, check out the sites above. And if you know of any others that you love share them in the comments!

How to line up memberships and recurring revenue before you open your yoga studio

I've had a number of conversations with people opening new yoga studios lately, and one of the things I talk about often is the power and importance of recurring revenue. But I also talk about how there's an easy way to generate recurring revenue before you even open your studio. 

One of the most powerful features we offer with Tula is our payment forms, and there's an important and valuable by-product of this feature that allows you to line up members for your new yoga studio, without charging your customers until opening day.

We always recommend that you start marketing your new studio as soon as possible.

If you've signed a lease, you should be handing out flyers at local restaurants, going to farmers markets (if that's an option) and generally spreading the word in every way you can. The trouble is, if you're not open yet, you don't really have anything to sell yet either.

What you can do however, is provide people with the option of purchasing early-bird discount memberships. Purchase a membership before the doors open, you can let them know, and pay the discounted price for as long as your a member. This is a great way to both build loyalty for your studio, *and* reward your very earliest supporters for as long as they're a member. It's a win-win for everyone.

If a full price membership is $129/mo, maybe offer an early-bird membership for $99. If full price is $99, maybe offer a discount membership for $85.

The idea is that in exchange for a small discount, you're getting people to commit to your new studio before the doors are even open. Importantly though, most people don't want to get charged until you have actually opened your doors. This is where our payment forms come in.

Because a student's credit card is not actually charged until you do the payment matching, what you can do with Tula is your new students fill out the payment form, but you simply don't match the payment until opening day. Doing this stores the information about the purchase, including the credit card, but it doesn't actually conduct the charge until later when you match the payment.

The result is your students can make a commitment to you early on, they don't get charged until your doors open, and on opening day you log some very real revenue and an kick things off with an initial set of committed customers.

A random assortment of tools to help you with your yoga business

I like to occasionally share information about Tools that we find useful and helpful. Of course, we think Tula is great for your yoga studio, but there are a slew of other tools out there that can help studios, instructors and others as they work towards building their businesses. In no particular order, here are some tools we love.

Canva.com - By far the easiest to use design tool I've ever had the pleasure to come across. If you need to make images, banners and other things, you need to check out Canva.

Tend.io - Beautifully easy way to see how people are finding your website.

LessAccouting.com - Every business needs to keep their books in order. Less Accounting makes is easy and simple. 

TicketLeap.com - If you're hosting a one-off event with ticket sales such as a yoga conference, they seem like a great option.

Regonline.com - Same as above. I love their public facing widgets, but their sign up flow leaves a lot do be desired in my opinion.

Square.com - Ever since they started handling appointments I'm unclear if they'll become a competitor at some point. But they still make it super easy for anyone to take credit cards. You should have a square account. 

Paypal.me - New service from paypal that makes it pretty easy to get paid by anyone.

Stripe.com - Get a stripe account and you'll be able to connect it to all sorts of web services that make it easy to take payments. 

Hover.com -  Register a domain name without giving your money to GoDaddy.

Squarespace.com - Easy and simple way to make a beautiful website.

Wix.com - Another easy way to make a beautiful website.

CampaignMonitor.com - Easy way to send beautiful marketing emails.

Simplecast.fm - Ever wanted to start a podcast? Simplecast makes it easy.

Formstack.com - Super easy online form builder

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things, but hopefully you find this of products useful; we use many of these ourselves every day. See something missing? Let us know in the comments!

"So what are you doing here?"

Oh yoga instructors.

I am at once inspired and made stronger by you, and also befuddled and perplexed by you. I heard a story the other day about a studio that uses us where an instructor asked their studio's new desk person the question: "So what are you doing here?" when they found out that this new desk person wasn't an instructor.

Whoa.

Now, there are a lot of beautiful and wonderful things about the yoga industry, (and even better people) and I talk about these things often. But there are also some very real things that are quite simply broken, and this is one of them. 

This is the kind of thing that I'm talking about when I write that the yoga industry at times seems to have a very real disrespect for people who are not teachers. There is a prevalance in the yoga community to believe that someone who's yoga path doesn't take them down the road of becoming a teacher is somehow on a path that is inferior. This is simply not the case and the level of disrespect this belief lays at the feet of the average yogi is stunning to me.

My wife Maile is not an instructor. And yet it is through her actions that countless people have been introduced to yoga, including myself.

Do servers and bartenders get asked by a Chef what they are doing in the restaurant? Do programmers ask a designer what they are doing at a development shop? Does a barista at Starbucks think less of a dedicated cashier? No. In these industries everyone realizes they are part of a team, and that team is formed by the business. 

I think it's high time the industry raises the expectations of how a professional yoga instructor should approach their chosen profession.

And if you're not ready to act like a professional, then what are you doing here?

On the benefits of private yoga instruction

For the past few weeks I've been taking a private yoga lesson about every other week with a woman named Natalie, who is also one of the instructors that teaches at Maile's studio. While I assumed I would enjoy the private lessons, I've actually come to find them far more valuable than I was expecting, and have come to believe private yoga lessons are something that more people would benefit from.

I wanted to write a bit about why I've found the private instruction valuable, why other yogi's might want to consider adding the occasional private lesson into their practice and hopefully provide something that will help instructors begin the conversation with their students about why they might be interested in a private.

Understanding the cost

The first thing I'll note is that I was actually a bit surprised at the cost for a private yoga lesson. At about $100 to $125 per hour, a private yoga class often costs about as much as a "regular" massage or Thai Massage. At first I thought to myself: "For a massage I can just lay there and someone massages me for an hour, but for a yoga class they're 'just' teaching me. And I have to do some work during a yoga class!"  And for a group yoga class, a drop-in is usually somewhere around $15 or 20% of a private instruction.

So my point is I was a little unclear as to why the cost was what it was.  Now, after having a few private lessons under my belt I can clearly articulate why privates are valuable.

Focused Attention

Here's the thing: what you're paying for with private instruction is the attention of a trained professional to guide you through a series of breathing exercises, postures and adjustments, specifically tailored to your practice, your body, your needs and the specific things you want to accomplish with your practice. For some people that might mean working on inversions, for someone else it might mean getting the right adjustments for their lower back, while for another person it might mean being guided through a meditation to calm their anxiety. 

Instead of looking at a private yoga lesson as the multiplied cost of a group class, it's far more accurate to look at it as an opportunity for all the energy and expertise that a yoga instructor usually has to divide amongst a class of people, all directed at you. 

Tailored Adjustments

Often times you'll notice in class an instructor will ask about whether people want or don't want adjustments. After having a few privates with the same instructor, they start to understand your body and your needs in ways that they simply wouldn't be able to through only teaching you group instruction.

The opportunity this affords you the student is that you get exactly what you want, and nothing you don't. 

Touch (If that's your thing)

It's interesting to note that of all the senses we have, how often we sometimes go without the sensation of touch by another person. Natalie commented to me once something that really stuck with me. She said something like: "You know for some people, a yoga class is the only time all day that they'll be touched by someone else in a kind way."

I don't necessarily think a private yoga lesson is something you should get just because you want to be touched (I'm not sounding creepy right?) but I do think that adjustments and the touch by another human are indeed one of the many positive aspects of a private yoga class.

A safe place for emotional release

Hands down, the weirdest thing about yoga to me is the way in which it can cause emotion to be released. I still remember coming home one time after a yoga class being completely confused, and told Maile that when I was in pigeon pose I started crying all of a sudden. Her response: "Oh yeah that happens sometimes!"

A good instructor will make sure that your classes are a safe place for you, and if a burst of emotional release is something that your body generates, a private yoga lesson is a safe place for this to happen. 

Positive impact on group classes

The most surprising benefit of private yoga instruction for me is the compounding benefit that it seems to have had on my group class participation. It's really remarkable how being shown a few modifications in a private can have a cascading impact into your practice as a whole. I've witnessed this not just with myself, but also with Maile who has at times had privates to work on various things she wanted to focus on.

Private instruction can be an important and valuable part of a yoga practice

The reason I write so passionately about the business of yoga is because I believe that the work instructors do is important and valuable. My experience with private instruction only makes me think moreso.

It's clear to me now that private yoga instruction is one of the many opportunities the industry affords to both the student and the instructor, and I'm grateful I've had the opportunity to experience the benefits first hand.

If you've been on the fence over scheduling a private, I say go for it.