3 Ways for Yoga Teachers To Stand Out In The Yoga Market
WE GET IT! There are a lot of yoga teachers in the world.
Initially, I wrote a long introduction to explain the staggering amount of people who both practice and teach yoga. But you’re not here for the numbers you want to know how you can stand out as a teacher in your local community.
1. Start with intention
It’s easy to jump straight to your list of yoga teaching goals without having a strong foundation to support your vision. I want to...
- teach at all the best yoga studios in town.
- sell out all of the workshops I offer.
- make a living being a yoga teacher.
But what’s your intention for teaching yoga?
A strong intention behind your teaching will carry you through all of the highs and lows of the profession.
For me, I have an overarching intention to share movement medicine with others. This stems from being stricken with the disease ulcerative colitis in my early twenties. Yoga was one of the main catalysts that offered me healing. I want to share the radical transformation in the health of my mind-body-spirit with others.
While this central intention informs all of my teachings, I also have individual intentions for every class I teach. When teaching a beginner Slow Flow class, my intention may be to create a safe space to explore how to release tension in the body.
2 powerful questions to ask yourself:
- What life experience made yoga a pivotal part of your life?
- What are the 3 reasons why you believe yoga is an important practice to share with others.
2. Own your teaching style
The rise of Instagram has created the Yogi Rock Star. Even before I write this sentence, you can probably rattle off your top 5 favourite teachers.
It’s inevitable with a community of yogis at your fingertips through the portal of an app that you’re going to compare yourself to other yoga teachers.
“I want to be able to handstand like Dylan Werner and flow with ease like Meghan Currie,” you might tell yourself.
But you will never be exactly like these teachers. You can take inspiration from their practice and teaching. But they have their own set of life experiences that have brought them to where they are and so do you.
If you were a construction worker who had a back injury and yoga helped you to recovery, use this as your inspiration. You could create a class or workshop focused on helping tradesmen to prevent injury in the workplace.
When your teaching comes across as an authentic expression of yourself, your students, other teachers, and studio owners will recognise this. They will see there’s a strong purpose behind why you teach, and more opportunities will come your way.
2 powerful questions to ask yourself:
- What are 3 things that make your yoga teaching unique?
- What is one
3. Find your yoga community
Where I live, each yoga studio has a specific niche of yogis they’re trying to cater too. Your city is probably similar. Some studios offer purely Vinyasa. Others a mixture of Hatha and Yin. While others may have a mix of movement modalities like Barre and Pilates mixed in with yoga.
Each studio has a different community of yogis who attend, and this creates the vibe or feel of the studio. It’s inevitable you will feel more at home at certain studios more than others.
As a teacher, it’s important to teach to your ideal audience. Yoga teaching is a business, and you want to make sure to find and sell yourself to the tribe of people who will most resonate with your offering.
If you’re still in the process of discovering what your yoga style is and which studio will align with your life and teaching, I recommend going on a yoga spree. Try out all of the yoga studios in your community. Most studios have a low priced intro week where you can try out as many classes as you like. For that week immerse yourself into the community - chat with the teachers and other members, try a variety of classes from beginner to advanced. After you’ve gone to five studios or more take some time to reflect on the top two to three which resonated most. And then dedicate your time and energy to these communities.
2 powerful questions to ask yourself:
- What are the top 3 yoga styles you enjoy practicing and teaching? e.g. Vinyasa, Restorative, Ashtanga, etc.
- What are the 5 yoga studios in your community you can try out for a week?
It’s true there are a lot of yoga teachers, but there’s no reason you can’t carve out your own unique space within the yogiverse.
3 Ways Yoga Teachers Can Differentiate Themselves Online
You open the Instagram app and type in #yoga. Over a million posts pop up showcasing yogis from all over the world. As you scroll through and check out profiles, you notice a trend of teachers who are posting engaging content and have created a significant following.
You ask yourself, “How can I do this too?”
Don’t worry. You already have everything inside of you to create an influential online presence. You just need to learn how to combine your authentic passion for yoga with an online strategy to create brand magic. This article will share with you the most powerful ways to build your ideal yoga business.
1. Share your authentic story
Your most compelling yoga business asset is your personal story.
Tony Robbins says it best, “Stories go far beyond simply relaying facts and data. Stories emotionalise information. They give colour and depth to otherwise bland material, and they allow people to connect with the message in a deeper, more meaningful way.”
Think about your favourite Netflix show. (Mine is The Umbrella Academy). Why do you love your favourite show? It’s the character stories that draw you in and get you to devote hours of your life to the show.
You need to recreate this in your yoga business. Through your social media share the deeper reason and purpose behind your teachings.
For me, yoga was a major catalyst for healing and growth from an autoimmune disease. I share this story of the medicine I received from my yoga practice in my classes and online. Through sharing authentically, I’ve connected with so many people from all over the world. And so many unexpected opportunities, like being a Brand Warrior for Warrior Addict, have come my way.
Share your authentic story and see what unexpected opportunities open up within the yoga world and beyond.
THREE powerful questions to ask yourself:
What life circumstances brought you to yoga? Why do you have a passion for teaching? How has yoga transformed your life?
2. You need a brand message people understand within 8 seconds
You’ve probably heard that goldfish have a greater attention span than humans. It’s true, Microsoft did a study involving electrodes attached to the brain to discover our attention span has decreased from 12 seconds to eight seconds in just a little over a decade.
What does this mean for your yoga brand? It means your brand message needs to be uber clear to your audience. When someone views your Instagram account, YouTube channel, or website they need to be able to get a taste of what you do right away. If it’s unclear, they’ll get distracted by the flashy pop up on the side of the screen and move on.
How can you hook people right away?
The foundation of your brand needs to be firmly established. Your brand message needs to share who you are, what you do, why you do it, and what your brand values are. You’re already well on your way with developing your authentic yoga story.
3 powerful questions to develop your brand:
- What are your top 5 personal core values? - i.e., Reliability, Authenticity, Courage, etc.
- Are your personal values the same as your yoga business values?
What type(s) of yoga do you teach? - i.e., Vinyasa, Hatha, Yin, Ashtanga
- What differentiates your yoga teaching from other teachers?
3. Create a social media plan
If you’re a yoga teacher, you’re also an entrepreneur. This means you need to treat your yoga teaching as a business.
When you check out @warrioraddict @lululemon @shophalfmoon or any of the most prominent yoga brands you’ll notice there is an intentional formula and strategy behind the content they put out. If you want people to see you as an authority and go-to person within the yoga world, you need to show up consistently with valuable content. If you only post when inspiration strikes, it will be difficult to build up a quality following of people who want to engage with your content.
How can you remedy this?
Create a social media plan that works towards your yoga business goals.
3 powerful questions to create an online marketing plan:
- What are your top 3 goals for your yoga business? - i.e., draw more awareness to your teachings to fill up classes, sell yoga videos online, etc
- How many posts can you commit to create every week? (Make sure you're realistic. If you can only commit to one high-quality post per week this is better than none.)
- What are the top 3 topics you can create content around? - i.e., yoga pose alignment, nutrition, breathing (pranayama) techniques, etc.
Creating a powerful online presence for your yoga business will require intention, time, and energy. The positive impact you’ll have on people’s lives and the ideal lifestyle you’ll create will make it all worth it. Drop a comment below with the unique strategies you’ve used to stand out online as a yoga teacher.
This article was written for us by our Brand Warrior, the awesome Michael Toru, for more about Michael, click here