Imagine being a dancer teacher, business owner, social media manager and website designer, plus any other role your dance studio requires. Sound familiar? Many studio owners wear lots of hats when it comes to running their businesses, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Meet three educators-turned-entrepreneurs who are using their knowledge to help […]
Here’s how to inspire your local dance community to spend just a little bit more time and money at your store or studio. Don’t wait until Black Friday or Small Business Saturday to take action. Back-to-dance season may still be in full swing, but we all know what that means: The holiday season is just […]
Working with young people can be incredibly stressful. As a dance teacher, you might often take on a lot of the emotional burdens of your students, so it’s extremely hard to proactively take a step back and consider how you’re feeling on a day-to-day basis. But practicing self-care is essential. Because when you make your mental […]
These days, Chantelle Bruinsma of Studio Expansion helps studio owners around the world find unprecedented freedom in running their businesses. But once upon a time, she was a choral conductor who guided young singers to sound their very best (in venues like the Sydney Opera House, no less). So it makes perfect sense that Bruinsma […]
With so much else on your plate, from navigating virtual learning to keeping your studio afloat, it can be tempting to to cut corners or to settle for less in order to check “costumes” off of this season’s to-do list. Ultimately, though, finding a costume vendor you trust is paramount to keeping your stress levels […]
Small businesses across the U.S. are keeping careful tabs on their states’ reopening schedules and making changes to their business models accordingly. As pandemic-related guidelines and timelines evolve, it’s important that you have a multilayered plan for the gradual reopening of your studio—one that prioritizes your dancers’ and staff’s health, reassures families that it’s safe […]
Talk about being close: Dana and Hugo Adames have been together 18 years and have two kids who love to dance—and the couple owns The Talent Factory Performing Arts Centre, with two locations, 550 students and a third site in the works. Dana, artistic director, and Hugo, general manager, have a method for how they […]
On Wednesday, March 11—two weeks ahead of a statewide stay-at-home mandate—Colorado Conservatory of Dance executive director Richard Cowden and artistic director Julia Wilkinson Manley made the difficult decision to take all of CCD’s classes online. As you’d expect, it wasn’t easy. “This chapter in our future book will be called ‘The 96 Hours From Hell,’” […]
As COVID-19 forced state after state into some form of lockdown this spring, most studio owners realized right away that they needed to evolve quickly—or else watch their enrollment plummet. Online classes became the key to business continuity, but with so little time to adapt material to remote learning and train faculty members on new […]
For Shanna Kirkpatrick, owner of Chara Christian Dance Academy, the key to retaining 96.5 percent of her 1,000-student enrollment through COVID-19 has been communication: regular e-mail updates, mass studio text messages, personal phone calls and—perhaps most significantly—following up with Zoom no-shows. Kirkpatrick didn’t actually need to create any new protocol for this level of communication. […]