Thursday, April 17, 2008

How To Find Out If You Are Making Money In Your Yoga Studio Business

One of the major challenges that many studios face is dealing with finances. This doesnt necessarily mean just paying the bills, but knowing exactly how much money you made each month. Not just that you have money in the bank, but knowing what your expenses were and how much profit you made.

Perhaps you do this already, using QuickBooks (or something like it), and every transaction is entered, categorized and reconciled. At the end of the month you generate a profit and loss statement and examine your expenses and revenue to determine where you made money and where you lost money.

If you dont do this, you might wonder, Why should I care, as long as Im making money? Good question.

The goal is to determine where you really make money, and where you dont. Then, do more of whatever you do that makes money, as well as change or eliminate the things that dont make money.

For example, do you know exactly how much you made from classes this month as opposed to last month? Maybe youve done some advertising these numbers will tell you if it was worth it or not.

For example, suppose you find that for the past 6 months, you average of $5,000 from selling memberships per month, after paying instructors. Then, one month you spend $1,000 to do some radio advertising. At the end of this month, you again look at your profit and loss statement and see that you made $7,500. You made an extra $2,500, but the advertising cost $1,000, so in reality, your increase in profit from radio advertising was only $1,500. This tells you that it is worthwhile to use radio ads.

On the other hand, lets say you only made $5,800 on memberships that month. On the surface it appears you made and extra $800, but after taking into account that you spent an extra $1,000 on the radio ad, you really made $200 less than you had previously averaged.

Your conclusion would be that this type of radio advertising was not a good way to make more money. Yes, you did get more students from the radio ad, but not enough to offset the cost of the ad.

Think of it like a runner timing herself each time she practices the 100-yard dash. The stopwatch will tell her exactly how she did today compared to yesterday or last week. Maybe shes trying to decide if eating before running makes her faster, slower or has no effect. Without the stopwatch, she could feel like she was faster or slower, but not really know for sure.

The same is true for business. When we dont accurately measure profits and expenses, we end up like the runner who says Boy, I felt fast today! Sure, you probably have a good intuitive sense of how the studio is doing. And knowing the exact numbers will allow you to take your studio to a new level.

Doing this kind of analysis of profits can help you earn more and stress less. So often a studio will try the Advertising strategy of the month, randomly trying things to bring in more business, but never really knowing if they earned more money from it.

As you get more experienced with doing this (its actually not hard once you get used to it), youll be able to focus on those things that make money, and change or eliminate those that dont. And remember, as the one who is in charge of running the studio, no one cares more about the bottom line than you do.

I work with many people on this very idea: How to figure out where you are making money and losing money so that you can make your studio more profitable. If you have a questions you would like me to address about this, please email me at coach@CenteredBusiness.com, and I will try to address it in a future newsletter.

Coach Al Lipper
Business Coach for Yoga Studios
Destiny: Success
Website: http://www.CenteredBusiness.com
Email: coach@centeredbusiness.com
Telephone: (805) 544-3938

Coach Al Lipper of 'Destiny: Success' helps Yoga studio business owners smoothly run and grow their yoga studio. He helps stressed and overwhelmed yoga studio business owners who spend most their time wrapped up in daily business tasks, who can't handle any more clients, or who can't make any more money out of the business. Coach Al helps clients find new yoga business strategies which result in generating more clients, increased profits, and more free time for the yoga studio owner. The amount invested was small compared to the results. Contact him today to discuss your yoga studio challenges at (805) 544-3938 or visit http://www.CenteredBusiness.com

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Yoga Cure for Hypertension

Hypertension, the extensive problem found in all age groups has created a panic throughout the world, as its proper and harmless cure is still not confirmed even by the physicians of the modern world. Hypertension in its definition means a condition where the blood pressure is higher than the normal.

There are several causes of hypertension but the major ones are:

Hormonal imbalance (increased secretion of epinephrine)
Food habits (Excessive intake of oily foods)
Age factors (narrowing of the arteries due to deposition of fat in them making the arterial wall narrower thereby which in turn increases the flow of blood)

Hypertension has drastic consequences like:
Strokes
Heart Attacks
Heart Failure
Arterial aneurysm
Renal/Kidney Failure

It is true that hypertension could be controlled through intake of several allopathic drugs like - ACE inhibitors, terazosin, propranolol, amlodipine, bendroflumethiazide etc. though there are several hundreds besides them. But it is mostly found that there are always some side effects associated with them.

The burning question! Is it fully curable? The answer for this is same for all deadly illness Every disease is curable but...? The statement continues. Anyway in this article I would like to focus how to control the problem of hypertension through Yoga practices.

Hypertension is mainly caused by improper working of arteries and heart which is ultimately controlled by our brain impulse. So if we are able to calm our brain its possible to calm our body parts too. Yoga provides a unique technique to handle this. Practices of several Yoga asanas (Postures) and Dhyana (Meditation) has proved beneficial to several high blood pressure patients.

Postures includes bending of legs and sitting in a fixed position, slow movement of neck in circular directions, lying on the floor over the front and bring legs closer to back etc., this relaxes the muscles which ultimately strengthens the blood vessels.

The other technique includes Meditation which is considered to be the best weapon against hypertension, this is one of the most ancient technique used for managing stress and other mental disorders. But some recent studies have shown that meditation even help in control hypertension because hypertension is caused by more or less a mental disorder. Meditation or Dhyana involves severe concentration of mind over one point, in order to do medication bring yourself in a relax able posture you like, after that concentrate your mind (Not eye, as we found in many books / articles which focus our eye over one object, it is entirely different phenomenon used to sharpen memory and has nothing to do with mental ailments) over any object with eyes shut. Practice this method in several body postures regularly and ultimately you will find your mind in calm position thereby helping in coping with your Hypertension.

Now-a-days several modern health organizations are promoting yoga for treating the hypertension and launching campaigns and workshops for the people to follow several Yoga guidelines in its treatment against Hypertension.

Author is a contributor writer for Health. To get the latest books on yoga log on to www.aggarwaloverseas.com

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