GOTCHA! On a more serious note 🙂 ~ About Oct last {2014} I was listening to BBC Radio Jersey one evening just after 8 and the presenter said some guy had called in and said ‘Yoga’ was just another word for spinning money’ (there must have been a topic I missed earlier about Yoga). I wanted to phone in and invite him down to 3a Rue de Funchal to watch us ‘spin money’.
Those who don’t come to class may not realise YM are not a glossy international chain model with a big budget behind us. We are not ‘Yogamatters’ big corporate online retailer in the UK. They sell Yoga pants to the masses folks, we sell Yoga bliss to the individual 🙂 !
Someone said to me recently that they didn’t come before because they heard we are ‘full all the time’. This is far from the truth. One full class does not mean we are full all the time, it means ‘that class’ is full. That class pads out a quieter class where there might be 3-5-8 people. There are many, many, MANY of those throughout the year.
On 30 December 2014 YM had £25.62 in the bank; and then we had a few hundred. Enough to pay a few small bills but not enough to pay the lease or salary or bigger bills. It is not the first time YM has been in this position. We were worried because we were wholly dependent on ‘January’ on so many levels and last ‘January’ just didn’t happen for us! This January the month has wore on, week 3 was so good 🙂 and once again THE UNIVERSE HAS PROVIDED 🙂 .
Please don’t forget; as well as investing in yourself you are investing in a very small local business and enable the main instructor (me) via my salary to contribute to a normal household, mortgage, Tax, Social Security (oh how I have done battle with that department 🙂 ) and household running. Darren still has another job to enable him to make his contribution to these (and both contributions are needed). I happily buy second hand because that stretches the pennies. We budget just like you and WE ARE HAPPY to be making our way in life DOING WHAT WE LOVE for a living. I think there are a lot of little local businesses out there surviving, not trying to take over the world, but happy out, happy as Larry, happy like a room without a roof 🙂
For some a measure of success is ‘money in the bank’ and they may filter what they see through that thinking e.g. YM is still in business after 3.5 years, they have some busy classes, therefore they must be raking it in otherwise WHY would they bother keep doing it if not for a big pay day? 2+2 = 22. What they don’t see is that there is rarely a class that doesn’t have at least one person in it for free (whether its prizes or otherwise), they see a lovely room but not the massive overheads which were our commitment to be able to do this in the way that we felt was right for us and our practitioners; We like it that way. We are not ‘in the middle of a ‘game’ or a ‘fad’ where you can maximise profits for the duration and move on. We take what we practice and offer to others very seriously and yes it would be nice if we could worry a bit less BUT our big energy and focus is towards creating safe space and keeping our practitioners happy and growing AND ensuring the original hot Yoga remains in Jersey as an option for potential practitioners. And we are glad to do it this way. Yes we want to win the lottery just like many. In the meantime 🙂 YOU are YM; without you we would not be.
FB is a great way for us to share our news and ethos and spread the YM word (our version of marketing). Every time one of you ‘likes’ or ‘shares’ our truth and keeps our name circulating in the local network that delights us and feels like a huge endorsement to us personally. Maybe every so many likes or shares with your friends we might get an enquiry or someone might come to class because of it. This is massive to us, we never take it for granted, please don’t underestimate what your like/share has done for YM, please don’t think it went unnoticed and we are so very grateful to YM practitioners and others for helping us in this way. We couldn’t do without you. THANK YOU.
Om Om Om YOU ARE OUR UNIVERSE
Yogi Trisha & Yogi Darren
January 2015