Sunday, January 27, 2008

What Should You do With a Yoga Book?

If you are deciding which yoga book to buy for your collection, choose a book that will captivate your imagination, and suit your needs. On the subject of reading yoga books: It has been a life long passion for some of us. Yet, it is not the number of books you read, but how you apply them to your life and the lives of others around you, which makes a difference.

The practical application of what you learn is more important than the quantity of yoga books you read. So, the question is: How will you put the knowledge you learn to good use? To take an extreme view: If a homeless man reads personal finance magazines every day, he has educated himself, but he has not applied any of the advice.

You would be surprised what the homeless know. I knew a man who was homeless, yet he was very familiar with the ups and downs of the stock market. How did he learn so much? He pulled the Wall Street journal from the trash and mentally absorbed it. Unfortunately, he never applied the knowledge he learned.

This is a critical point to understand. Knowledge is like a bank savings account - You have to save, but you also have to put your savings to good use. In the words of Andrew Carnegie, I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

To learn knowledge, without applying it to life, is a waste. It is not intentional, in most cases, but what a shame it is to know so much and not be able to help anyone with it.

Within yoga, today, are so many books to read, which were not accessible to many of us a few decades ago. Some yoga texts have been in existence for thousands of years, but local libraries did not have much on the topic of yoga.

At that time, we did not have VCRs, DVDs, Internet access, e-books, MP3 Downloads, or yoga audio books.

So, what did we do? When we acquired a yoga book, or any book, we analyzed it by hand, and read a little. We made sure it would suit our needs, before we checked it out of the library, or purchased it from a book store.

The reason is simple If we buy or borrow any kind of a book, the value of our time is magnified by our complete comprehension and the ability to put it to practical use.

Copyright 2007 Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500, has written many books on the subject of yoga. He is a co-owner and the Director of yoga teacher training at: Aura Wellness Center, in Attleboro, MA. http://www.riyoga.com He has been a certified Master yoga Teacher since 1995. To receive a Free yoga e-book: "Yoga in practice," and a Free yoga Newsletter, please visit: http://www.yoga-teacher-training.org/index.html

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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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