If you received me blast email sent out on Tuesday, May 19th, you hopefully read that I'd be putting up a PilatesNun.com piece with ideas about how you can raise money within your own studio to help you pay for registration at the PMA conference in 2010, or any other educational experience that you're interested in having.
My finishing school, Pilates Excel, includes a bunch of ideas like these because most teachers, most studio owners, will never have as much money to spend on continuing education as they'd like. Most teachers feel it's hard enough just to get through primary education and once they've cleared their basic program, they often wait years before they're able to afford to continue learning within a formal structure. Of course, we learn every day that we teach but our teaching becomes stale when we don't immerse ourselves in educational experiences outside our own teaching environment.
And then there's the troubling issue of what to do, which of the gazillion options available should you say yes to? I'm the type of person who likes to shop online at sites that have very few options within a particular category. I am easily overwhelmed in the face of too many choices. And there's a good reason for that.
I just finished reading a great book about that very sort of thing, it's called How We Decide and it's written by a sexy neuroscientist named Jonah Lehrer. Among the tons of great stuff in the book I learned that many people have trouble with too many choices because we can only actually and really track on so many pieces of information at a time. Know how many? Are you ready? Seven. As in 5, 6, 7. Makes you feel better about being so challenged by multi-tasking, doesn't it.
It'll help you make a good decision if you have a process by which you decide what continuing education you'll pursue. Start by researching teachers you connect well with, evaluate their offerings for the next 3 - 18 months (PMA certification requires 16 PMA credits every 2 years so you'll want to make your educational horizon consistent with your professional certification). Determine your weaknesses in teaching and try to find educational options from that favored teacher that most directly and fully address your weaknesses. One of the biggest mistakes teachers make is they keep taking more courses in things they're already good at. You have to make the most out of the money you do have to spend on education, your clients, co-workers and studio owner will very much appreciate you filling in your gaps instead of moving further toward specialization.
And now for formats.
The big educational conferences give you a taste of educators, presenters, exhibitors and schools but the down side to the big conferences is that the vast majority of education happens in 90 - 120 minute slots. Remember that PMA conferences have the highest standards for presenters and some conferences don't have any standards for presenters. Buyer beware. At the big conferences, there's not much meat but you will have exposure to a whole lot of educators.
The big schools offer all sorts of workshops from a half day to intensives that run for several days in a row. My school, Pilates Excel, can be presented in anywhere from 32 - 75 hours with the difference being time to practice.
And no matter what you choose to attend, I cannot tell you how valuable it is just to have a change of studio scenery and to hear wise voices, other than your own, talking their way through common Pilates issues and challenges. Even if your choice of course wasn't the best, you will still get a lot out of just showing up, presenting yourself in a state of openness, willingness, eagerness and caring. Sometimes, I've come away from educational experiences that were so awful - poorly planned, lack of content, speakers so deficient in presentation skills that you no longer even care what they're saying, you just want it to end - with a crystal clear idea of what not to do and a negative experience is almost always more powerful than a positive one. My point is, any educational experience has value, even a less than fabulous one.
Continuing Education bottom line: It matters less what you do. It matters most that you do. Quoting Nike: Just do it.
Now, how to pay for it.
Here's the concept.
The key to success in structuring an in-studio fundraising campaign is to have no-cost services provided in exchange for clients paying to experience the events.
The simplest version of this is to add classes to the schedule, and the operative word there is "add," that are billed as Educational Fundraising Classes that are in addition to your clients' usual class schedule so there is a saturating clarity, purpose and expectation with every mention of the event. Clients must be your ally in this regard, you have to let them know without exception that you're doing this in order to raise more money, additional money, money you wouldn't otherwise have in order to pay for you to suffer the inconvenience of traveling, abandoning your family and responsibilities and trying to learn things that you'll bring right home to them, to help them, to make them stronger, to better be able to serve them. It's all about them and they must know that from the start if this is going to work.
Your plan will fail if you don't make it clear to your clients that this is extra, in addition to their usual sessions, classes, visits to the studio. That's key.
Here are some specifics.
Other class-series ideas include: stretch, perfecting a 10-minute a day at-home mat or stability ball or magic circle program, finally getting those upper back muscles to come off their "locked long" setting, relaxation, breathing, partner classes of any sort, foam roller routines, advanced,
Like most things, you're critical juncture for success is in the set up.
Now, as you read the list below, please don't think to yourself "oh, that's ridiculous, that would never work in my studio." You'll be defeated before you even have a chance to begin. Even if NONE of these ideas is relevant to your unique situation, just reading the list will get your brain a bubblin' (not really, but you know what I mean) and you'll be energized and before you know it, you'll have come up with the perfect thing for you, all by yourself.
Open your mind.
Here's some examples of how to go about this - these should at least get you thinking.
Add a technique-based "it's time to clean up our form" series of mat classes, 2 - 4 a month for 1 - 3 months and reserved the proceeds from them to bankroll your continuing education.
Trade a couple of privates or simply offer to exposure the provider to a bunch of people who stand a good chance of doing business with the provider and get a massage therapist to trade out an evening of her time for her to do "bench work" at your reception. What reception? Your Educational Fundraising Reception, where in exchange for $15 (or whatever your market will bear) a head you'll welcome clients and their friends and families to share an evening of all things Pilates. Do demonstrations - they love to watch you perform your beautiful Pilates routines - share historical information about the Method, Joe Clara, our first generation teachers, the overall industry. While all that's going on, have the massage therapist giving 10 minute massages to your guests.
You can do the same thing with mani/pedi, tarot readers, caricature artists, astrologers, doctors of any sort (podiatrists are especially fun, not as people - good Lord, definitely not as people - but to do eval-recommend-refer type services in this format), belly dancers, dance lessons of any sort, and the whole time you can be working the crowd, pressing the flesh, filling the glasses and booking sessions, signing up new clients, and generally being the center of everyone's Pilates life. That's what you do best. That's what will put money into your educational slush fund.
Let's do the math.
Let's say you're wanting to go to the PMA conference in 2010 and you live on the east coast. Your airfare, registration and hotel are going to total about $1200 and you have 18 months to raise it.
At a single reception/event, you can expect conservatively to have 10 attendees, each paying $15 to attend. With a single event netting you $150, you'd need to have 8 events in order to generate $1200. If, at a single event, you get 20 people to attend at $15 each, you'd net $300 per event and only need to do 4 of them in order to generate enough revenue to pay your way to the PMA conference.
if you run a mat series, you'll get there much faster than by doing a single event and repeating it over time.
Are you already coming up with your own ideas of what to do? If not, you better call during cocktail hour, we'll both do a heavy pour and together, will come up with the perfect thing.
+1 (206) 525-7769.