This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Today's caller is doing well teaching aerial yoga classes on the beach. Is there a way to scale this business and perhaps teach online? How can she take this flying high operation to new heights? Also, is aerial yoga the kind of thing that can only be taught in person? Or is there a way to digitize it the way we've seen with so many other things lately?
Welcome to Sadduceful School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Last but not least, in this episode, we'll talk about personal branding. What personal branding lessons can you take from this puzzle and what are you doing now for your personal branding? If you hate that phrase, if you're like, "Ugh, personal branding, "that sounds terrible," I get it.
So just think about it as your area of expertise, your area of helpfulness. How can you be more helpful to more people? Because ultimately, personal branding will be part of what gets you there. So let's talk about all that stuff. How can I take my aerial yoga teaching to the skies, or at least to the internet, after this message from our sponsor?
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Hi, Chris. This is Tori from St. Augustine Beach, Florida. I found the show through your 100 Side Hustles book, and I've been listening ever since. My side hustle is teaching aerial yoga classes on the beach.
I just started last year, and I've gotten really positive feedback through almost all five-star reviews on my Airbnb experiences page. This has empowered me to raise my prices and look into additional revenue streams. Last year, I made about half of my money through teaching in-person classes on the beach, and the other half from leading an aerial yoga teacher training course at a yoga studio. My question is, my idea isn't really scalable as I need to be there in person to lead a class or training. I'm thinking about adding an online teaching platform, including aerial yoga, Pilates, and yoga.
I enjoy teaching all of these, however, I worry that it might be too broad. Should I just focus on one thing? There are fewer aerial yoga-specific streaming platforms than ground-based yoga or Pilates, which means less competition. However, it is more expensive for students to set up their own aerial yoga setup in their homes in order to take the classes. I'd love to know your thoughts and any advice about taking my in-person business online.
Thank you for this awesome community you've created, and I look forward to hearing from you. - Tori, what's up? Thank you so much. You're awesome. So glad we found each other through 100 Side Hustles, and I'm even more glad that you are taking lots of positive steps.
It sounds like Tori's done a really good job of diversifying her income. She's got half of it coming from Airbnb experiences and half from teaching those classes on the beach. Now, of course, in the age of COVID-19, some of those things may be more limited, but hopefully in the long term, both of those things will come back fully. Now, it's smart of her as well to raise her prices and look into those additional revenue streams. So let's talk about this.
My first thought with aerial yoga was like, wow, that's kind of hard to do online. It's hard to teach online. Like I've been to a couple of aerial yoga classes and they're a lot of fun, but it seems like they require in-person demonstrations, plus I wonder a bit about the equipment, which she mentioned and such. The thing is though, if we have learned anything in recent months, it's that a lot of stuff that seemed difficult to transform to the digital world isn't actually that hard. Like there probably is a way.
And I imagine that in the long term, a lot of Tori's revenue will continue to come from those in-person experiences. I'd be surprised if she was able to go totally online, but one way or another, this is an opportunity to brand herself beyond her local area. I think since she's already teaching different stuff, it is important to build that brand, not just for her local community, but beyond. And in terms of classes and such, yes, it might be too broad to offer all those things. And I understand the concern with focusing just on aerial yoga for all the concern she mentioned and the ones I did as well, but I think it's actually pretty interesting.
And I think it would be cool to see what happens if she tries to become, Tori tries to become the online aerial yoga instructor. And if she did that, that doesn't preclude her from doing those other things as well in the long term, but I just think it might be helpful to have that focus, which I think is what she's already kind of leaning towards. So anyway, really interesting question. I look forward to seeing what happens next, both on the ground and up in the air, perhaps on the internet as well. You can follow Tori at ToriMoves on Instagram.
That's T-O-R-I-M-O-V-E-S. Thank you so much, Tori, again. And listeners, thank you. You're awesome. Let me know if you have a question, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
We'll be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they reach new heights, or just develop and launch and grow their project. That's good too. All right, be sure to come back tomorrow. Be sure you're subscribed. It's all free, a new lesson every day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Sydustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
