If you’re reading this after a long day of back-to-back classes, a parent email you’re not sure how to answer, and a to-do list that somehow got longer by the time you sat down, you’re not alone. And you’re exactly who this guide is for.

Running a dance studio is one of the most rewarding things you can do. It’s also one of the hardest. Not because of the dancing; you’ve got that part. It’s everything else, such as the scheduling, the families, the instructors, the constant balancing act of keeping the lights on while still leaving room for the reason you started all of this.

Here’s the thing most guides miss. They’ll walk you through how to start a studio. The lease, the business plan, the first class. That’s useful, but starting happens once. Running a studio is what comes every single week after that. It’s a profession, not a project. And it deserves to be treated like one.

Whether you’ve just opened your doors or you’ve been doing this for years and you’re ready to build something more sustainable, this guide is your starting point.

Starting a Studio Is a Project. Running One Is a Profession.

Think about learning a new dance style. In the beginning, you’re focused on getting the footwork right, remembering the counts, and not bumping into the person next to you. That’s your startup phase. But mastery? That comes from showing up to the same practice, week after week, and getting 1% better every time.

Running a studio works the same way.

The challenges of starting and the challenges of running are fundamentally different. Starting involves a concentrated burst of decisions: location, name, branding, and first-class setup. Running involves the decisions that keep coming back: how you fill classes when spots open up, how you support a family that’s frustrated and on the edge of leaving, how you keep your best instructor from burning out.

And here’s what a lot of experienced studio owners will tell you: the teaching side isn’t what trips them up. It’s the business side. Financial records, tracking systems, accountability, KPIs, for many studio owners who’ve spent decades perfecting their craft, those pieces simply never got built, not from lack of effort, but because no one ever taught them that part.

A thriving studio doesn’t just offer good classes. It has a schedule local families can count on, instructors who stay long enough to genuinely know their students, and a feeling in the room that says you belong here. That last part is harder to write down than a floor plan. But it matters more than almost anything else.

Getting Your Legal Foundation Right

Here’s a mindset shift that helps: the paperwork isn’t the point. It’s the foundation that frees you to focus on your students. Get it handled once, get it right, and you’ll never have to think about it again.

Business license and zoning. A general business license from your city or county is the starting point. Confirm your space is zoned for commercial use and meets local building and safety codes. Your city or county planning office can walk you through what’s required in your area.

Liability insurance. Non-negotiable. It protects your students, your staff, and everything you’ve built.

Music licensing. This one catches a lot of studio owners off guard. If you play recorded music in your classes, and of course you do, you need a performance license through ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. It applies regardless of whether you charge for the class. Getting it right means you never have to think about it again.

Business structure. Most studio owners who plan to hire instructors benefit from forming an LLC. It creates a layer of protection between your personal finances and your business. A local attorney or CPA can help you figure out what makes sense for your situation, and that conversation is worth having early.

Think of this as your warm-up. You wouldn’t skip it before a performance. Don’t skip it here either.

Building a Schedule Your Community Can Count On

Ever tried to teach a combination to a group where half the students are four and the other half are eleven? It doesn’t work. And your schedule shouldn’t try to make it work either.

The goal is something that fills reliably, runs consistently, and gives local families a rhythm they can depend on week after week.

Organize by age first. The developmental difference between a four-year-old and a ten-year-old is too large to bridge in a single class. Start with four broad groups: toddlers (ages 3 to 5), youth (ages 6 to 10), teens (ages 11 to 17), and adults (18 and up). Within each group, you can add beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels as your enrollment grows.

Build around when families can actually show up. The most carefully designed class means nothing if it’s scheduled at the wrong time. After-school hours and Saturday mornings are your most reliable slots for youth. Adults tend toward evenings. Build your core schedule around those anchors first, and add classes only when you see consistent demand.

Start lean. It’s tempting to launch with ten class options right away. Resist that impulse. Five or six well-attended classes will do more for your studio’s reputation and your own sanity than a sprawling schedule with half-empty rooms. Let your waitlists tell you when it’s time to add.

Build in breathing room. Back-to-back classes with no transition time creates stress for your instructors and a rushed feeling for families. Even ten to fifteen minutes between classes changes the energy in the building. Your studio should feel like a place people want to linger, not one they’re rushing through.

Keep classes small, intentionally. A class of 6 to 12 students gives your instructor the room to actually see each student. To catch what’s working. To notice what needs support. To build the kind of relationship that makes a student want to come back next week and the week after that.

Protect the schedule you build. Families plan their entire week around your class times. Frequent changes erode the very trust you’re working to create. Once you’ve found a schedule that works, treat it like a promise. When adjustments are unavoidable, communicate early and explain why. Families are forgiving when they feel respected.

Students who feel seen stay. Students who feel like one of a crowd drift away. Smaller class sizes aren’t a limitation; they’re how you build a studio that families are loyal to.

Attracting Families in Your Area Who Are Ready to Stay

Wondering why some months bring a flood of new inquiries, and others feel like a ghost town? You’re not alone. Most studio owners experience the enrollment roller coaster. The studios that have gotten off it share one thing: they show up consistently in the right places.

Your Google Business Profile is your most powerful local tool

When a parent nearby searches for dance classes, your profile is what shows up before your website. Keep it current: accurate hours, real photos of your space and your students in action, and genuine reviews. A well-maintained profile will outperform most paid ad campaigns for local discovery, and it costs you nothing but a little time.

Short-form video builds trust before the first call

Instagram Reels and TikTok give prospective families in your area a look inside your studio before they ever contact you. You don’t need a production setup. Authentic clips of students training, performing, and genuinely enjoying themselves communicate far more than a polished promotional video. What you need is consistency, not perfection.

Your current families are your best advocates

A simple referral program, a small thank-you credit for bringing in a new family, tends to generate your highest-quality leads. Why? Because the person referring already believes in what you’re doing. That trust transfers.

Seasonal moments create momentum

Back-to-school, the new year, summer intensives: these give families in your community a natural reason to act at predictable times of the year. Build your outreach around those windows, and you’ll stop feeling like you’re starting from zero every month.

When these strategies compound over time, the results can be significant. A California studio in just its second year of operation came in with 150 students. By getting the right systems in place and showing up consistently for their community, they grew to 400 students, a 2.5x increase in enrollment, with revenue growth that followed.

Keeping Students Enrolled Season After Season

Here’s a question worth sitting with: when did a student last leave your studio, and do you know why?

Getting students in the door is a marketing challenge. Keeping them is a cultural challenge. Both matter, and they require completely different approaches.

Make progress visible, out loud. Students who can see that they’re improving have a concrete reason to keep coming. Acknowledge milestones the moment they happen: a first clean turn sequence, a breakthrough in confidence, a performance moment that surprised even them. These recognitions cost nothing and build the kind of loyalty that keeps families re-enrolling year after year.

Stay connected between seasons. The gap between seasons is where you lose students. There’s no upcoming deadline keeping them engaged, and inertia can pull them toward other activities. A brief note home or a quick word with a parent at pickup signals something powerful: that you notice their child as an individual, not just a name on a roster.

Help students build real friendships. Students who’ve made genuine connections in your studio are more likely to re-enroll than those who remain strangers to their classmates. Pair students for exercises. Celebrate group milestones. Create small moments of connection inside class time. These things compound over seasons and years.

Online enrollment is now an expectation, not a bonus. Families in your area expect to register, pay, and manage their accounts without calling the studio. A good studio management platform handles this and usually includes scheduling tools and parent communication features that take real administrative work off your plate, so you can focus on the parts only you can do.

Studio owners who shore up all of these areas, progress visibility, between-season communication, community building, and the ease of enrollment, find that the results add up faster than expected. A Wyoming studio that had long plateaued at 200 to 300 students put focused attention on retention, staffing, scheduling, and programming. In her first year of implementation, she brought in an additional $65,000 in revenue, and has maintained or grown that number every year since.

Recitals Are a Retention Tool, Not Just a Tradition

Here’s something the most successful studio owners understand that others often miss: recitals aren’t just an artistic tradition. They’re one of your strongest tools for building a studio community that families choose to stay in.

When a student has a performance to prepare for, their motivation to show up stays high throughout the whole season. When a parent watches their child perform in front of an audience, they have an emotional, memorable reason to re-enroll. And the extended family and friends in those seats? They become some of your most organic word-of-mouth in the community.

Plan your recital early. Communicate the timeline to families before the season even begins. Make the experience joyful and polished enough that families want to share it. Studios that run strong annual showcases see lower drop-off between seasons, not as a coincidence, but as a result of giving students something worth working toward together.

Building a Studio Culture That Transforms Lives

Long-term success doesn’t come from any single decision. It accumulates through consistency in teaching quality, genuine relationships with local families, and the culture you build intentionally over time.

The studios that last aren’t usually the ones with the most elaborate marketing or the fanciest facilities. They’re the ones families trust year after year. They’re the ones students talk about with their friends. They’re the ones where the instructors actually want to be there.

Instructor consistency is a retention strategy. When a student has the same instructor season after season, something real develops: familiarity, trust, and the kind of safety that lets a student struggle openly without fear, which is exactly when real learning happens. High turnover breaks that continuity. And families who’ve invested emotionally in a particular teacher will sometimes follow them out the door. Hiring carefully, compensating fairly, and building a culture your instructors want to be part of is one of the most important investments you can make, for your students and for your studio.

One of the clearest signs of a strong studio culture is when the owner is no longer the only one holding everything together. Studio owners who invest in developing their team find a turning point where they can hire confidently, grow team members into leaders, and bring on full-time staff to handle day-to-day operations. That shift doesn’t just make the studio more sustainable, it frees the owner to focus on growth rather than survival, and to actually enjoy the life they built the studio to create.

Culture lives in the small moments. How does your front desk handle a frustrated parent? How quickly does a new family go from feeling like a stranger to feeling like they belong? Culture is the sum of all of these moments. Strong studios communicate proactively, celebrate progress at every level (not just at the top), and hold a consistent standard of warmth across every touchpoint. None of that requires a big budget. All of it requires intentional leadership.

You’re not just running a business. You’re an architect of dreams, a builder of character, and a champion of a brighter future for every student who walks through your doors. The studios that thrive are the ones where that shows in everything, not just the teaching, but the whole experience of being part of the community you’ve created.

You Don’t Have to Build This Alone

This guide has covered a lot of ground. Scheduling, enrollment, retention, recitals, culture. And if you’re sitting with it thinking, “I know I should be doing more of this, but I’m already stretched so thin,” that’s not a failure of will. That’s just the reality of running a studio on your own.

Here’s the truth: knowing what to do and having the support to actually do it, consistently, season after season, without burning out, are two very different things.

At More Than Just Great Dancing!®, studio owners get access to advanced tools, resources, and coaching, plus a network of like-minded owners who understand the journey because they’re living it too. Members have used those resources to learn how to hire the right people, develop their team members into leaders, build stronger retention and programming, and free up the time and headspace to actually enjoy the business they worked so hard to create. The community pushes them to keep getting better, and they’re not doing it alone.

That’s exactly the gap MTJGD™ was built to close.

Ready to expand your studio’s reach and transform more lives through dance? Explore membership, upcoming events, and what it looks like to be part of a community that’s genuinely invested in your success.

Your students deserve a thriving studio. And so do you.

Have you ever heard of the “curse of knowledge”?

It is a cognitive bias that happens when we think someone else has the same knowledge we do. And it happens all the time when we communicate with clients!
On a scale of 1 to 10, your dance knowledge is a 10. But your average client or prospect is probably a 2 or 3 at most.
Achieving effective sales, high trust, and strong engagement requires that you close the gap between your knowledge and theirs.
What’s the solution to closing the gap? Meet them where they are.

Try some of these solutions to eliminate the curse of knowledge and build confident connections:
• Empathize. Remember that parents may be new to dance—and learning new things takes patience and understanding.
• Reassure. Remind parents often that dance for their child is a great decision. Re-cast your studio vision for them frequently.
• Educate. Use studio emails, newsletters, blog posts, and social media to help parents learn more about your studio and the benefits of dance.
• Don’t assume. Take explanations one step at a time and welcome questions, even if you hear them all the time.

Lean into simplicity. Resist the urge to overcomplicate communications. Use super simple text, colorful graphics, and storytelling.

Are there other ways you are closing the gaps? Tell us on Facebook or Instagram! We want to hear your solutions too. 🙂

While your mission may be the most motivating factor in your business life, it cannot happen without hard work, dedication, and yes, revenue. As STS™ founder Misty Lown says, “Without money, there is no mission!” 

In order to serve your community and have a positive impact, you must have a profitable business model. So, what is the solution if you need to bring in more revenue to make a profit?

Let’s use an example and say your business needs to earn $3,000 more per month (or $36,000 per year) in order to fulfill its mission. Here are four ways to fill that need:

1. Sell more to current students. Assuming you have 250 current students, $3,000 divided by 250 students equals $12 per student per month or $144 per student per year. What can you sell to fill that need?
2. Sell to more students. Assuming the average studio family pays $100 per month, $3,000 divided by $100 per month equals 30 more students. Where could you accommodate 30 more students?
3. Sell something new. What new programming, apparel, workshops, private lessons, or other ancillary items can you sell? Don’t forget to factor in the costs of goods sold for any new services or products you sell.
4. Cut costs. To save $3,000 per month, dig deep into your budget. Call your merchant services provider, phone/internet/electric/gas companies, or other providers to inquire about savings. Every dollar counts!

You could also try a combination of each idea here to meet the needs of your revenue goals. Keep track of your progress and tell us how you created a more profitable business!

As a studio owner, you want to develop your team so that more leaders can rise up. More leaders on your team means that you can step forward into your strengths as the visionary and executive of the business.

But how do you know who is right for a leadership role? Start by identifying these characteristics in your people:

1. Dedication and loyalty, with an alignment to the studio’s values, culture, and “personality.”
2. Perseverance following mistakes. Do they give up easily or press on?
3. High level of engagement. Leaders enjoy participation and seek new opportunities in their work.
4. Aptitude for personal growth. A desire to learn—together with the skill to apply that new knowledge—demonstrates leadership potential.
5. Strong communication skills. Leaders build relationships, and relationships are built through trusted, positive communications.
6. Progress over perfection. Just like with dance students, you want leaders who strive (and who enjoy the process!).

Leaders are made, not born. By identifying these leadership qualities in your team members, you are better able to offer opportunities for them to step up into more responsibility—and potentially more job satisfaction, leading to higher employee retention too.

When you increase your personal productivity and delegate more responsibilities to your employees, it’s likely that you will see new opportunities for your time. No longer will you be stuck in an endless loop of answering phone calls and producing emails! Instead, you can turn attention to the big picture of your studio. 

To maximize your business’s potential, use the principle of dollarization, which states that:

For every hour that is freed up because of efficiency, discipline, and delegation, and where that recouped hour is redirected to your main focus, revenue starts to increase.

In other words, when you spend more time in your sweet spot, your business can become healthier! Start applying this concept across your operations in three key areas.

• Teaching
  Delegate some of your existing classroom time to other teachers who desire that opportunity. Then, devote your redeemed time to the tasks that are unique to you as the owner: leading, coaching, and connecting with those teachers so they can be their best for your students.
• Admin
  Equip your staff to handle more responsibility and make key administrative decisions, like troubleshooting solutions when problems arise. Then, instead of working at the front desk, invest time into staff retention, hiring, onboarding, and cross-training.
• Follow-up
  Spending too much time in your email or on the phone chasing after prospects or clients? Allow your employees to step in and only raise concerns to you when needed. Then, use the time you’ve gained to focus on big projects that move the business forward, like budgeting, forecasting, or program planning.

The principle of dollarization demonstrates that by spending your time doing the work only you can do, your business will thrive.

As a leader, you have a responsibility to help your employees understand what success looks like at the studio. If they have clarity around what’s required of them—and are held accountable—they are more likely to have confidence in themselves and follow-through on doing great work.

Key Results Areas (KRAs) are a few, firm definitions of what “winning” looks like for each role on your team. Use these example KRAs to establish your own—or better yet, ask your staff members to help develop their own KRAs. Those who help build the structure are more likely to keep it strong!

Front Desk:

1. Offer service that is kind, caring, and cheerful, knowing when to speak and when to listen.
2. Have a balanced sense of urgency and attention to detail when completing tasks and answering questions.
3. Stay cool under pressure when situations/conversations arise that need to be defused.

Teachers:

1. Know every child’s name and communicate clearly and kindly in the classroom.
2. Teach age-appropriate movement and choreography (with appropriate music) in accordance with studio requirements and deadlines.
3. Arrive early, prepared, and dressed professionally.

You may also want to set KRAs for your administrative team beyond the front desk, or for your leadership team. Don’t forget to discuss these guidelines often in order to keep them top-of-mind!

Have you ever looked at your studio’s social media and thought, “It’s time to get a handle on this!”

Getting savvy on social media doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are some common traps, followed by solutions:

Trap #1
Inconsistency. You find yourself posting whenever, wherever—without a plan.
Solution – “Social Day.” Set aside one day, with your social media staffer, to plan out an entire month, semester, or year of social media posts. Create a calendar and timeline. Take your old inconsistency and turn it into new reliability!

Trap #2
Low or no sales. Your posts to generate sales fall flat.
Solution – The 80/20 rule. Make sure that 80% of your studio’s posts offer education, celebration, or entertainment. The other 20% can be sales-driven. Increased value = increased purchasing.

Trap #3
Low or no visibility. It seems as though no one sees or reacts to your posts, except for the same people (and you know who they are!).
Solution – Pump up your engagement. Share, react, and comment to your community of followers. Post a mix of photos and videos and questions. Interact meaningfully and the algorithms will take notice.

Your employees are an invaluable resource to your business. They are arguably your biggest and best investment in order for your studio to achieve its mission!

But sometimes it’s a challenge to keep your staff engaged. They may seem disconnected or burned out, especially after these past two years. So how can you lift them up and empower them to do their best work?

Try these solutions to take your employees to the next level:

1. Equip and trust them to make decisions. That also means creating space for them to make mistakes. Gradually offer more training and responsibilities, allowing them a chance to prove themselves.
2. Role model positive problem-solving. Let them openly see how you handle conflict resolution and discuss what worked (and what didn’t).
3. When they bring a problem to your attention, ask “What do you recommend?” Listen. When possible, try their suggestions or allow them to take the solution to the finish line.
4. Celebrate wins, even small ones. Teams bond over shared effort. Be sure to reward your people for a job well done when goals are met.

As the studio leader, you are the coach—so don’t try to be one of the players! With your direction, patience, and encouragement, your team will step up their game.

With today’s hiring challenges, it’s no wonder studio owners find themselves wondering, “How will we get it all done?”

The answer lies with a multi-pronged approach, including updated hiring strategies and raising up your existing staff. Use these tactics to develop the muscle that powers your studio!

1. Create a career page on your website, with a quick-to-complete Google form application. Make it easy for job seekers to express interest in working with you.
2. Implement an apprenticeship program. If a promising job candidate fits your culture but lacks experience, bring them in for a trial training period to ensure a mutually good fit.
3. With input from your current teachers, build a new substitute teacher list. Connect with new grads, stay-at-home parents, and preschool teachers in your community too. You never know who has a dance background!
4. Invest in cross-training your employees. Make it possible for people to easily step into each other’s roles in a pinch. When you have a plan, build trust, and show confidence in them, their skills grow—and so does your business.
5. Equip your team with the tools that give them confidence: training, curricula, playlists, equipment. Become the studio known for prioritizing its employees and gain a reputation as the place everyone wants to work.

For your business to be financially healthy, there are a few firm percentages to target. Understanding these numbers—and working to close any gaps—will put your studio on solid financial footing.

If you’re not reaching these percentages yet, ask yourself: What needs to change about my business model? Then get to work on those answers!

• Target percentage #1
  Rent (or mortgage) to revenue: < 35%
  If your rent or mortgage is higher than 35% of your revenue, it’s time to take a look at your lease or financing. If you cannot make changes to your location, then focus on increasing revenue with new enrollment campaigns, client referrals, new programs, or a bump in tuition prices.
• Target percentage #2
  Labor to revenue: < 30%
  Keeping your payroll expenses under 30% means you are in a safe zone and have room to grow your profits. Will a higher number destroy your chances of financial success? No, but it’s important to analyze what’s causing the higher percentage and determine if it is sustainable over the long-term.
• Target percentage #3
  Profit margin: > 15%
  This is the percentage of net income your studio earns. The first place to start to increase this percentage is by setting a budget—and sticking to it. Control your expenses and increase your revenue to see profit margins expand.
• Target percentage #4
  Enrollment utilization: > 75%
  This percentage refers to how full your classes are. If, on average, your classes are more than three-quarters full, then your utilization is optimal! A lower percentage indicates that you might be offering too many sections of a certain program, and it’s time to combine or reimagine those classes.

Getting new people in the door can be as simple as following an advertising formula or generating leads from a community event—but what about attracting the right clients?

It starts with identifying buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional description of your ideal client. It is a well-researched, thoughtful representation of the personality type (or types) that your studio serves best.

Try writing down a few character qualities of clients you already love working with. Are they hyper-involved at the studio? Hands-off? Obsessed with Pinterest? Stay-at-home parents? What about them makes them ideal to serve? Why are they a good fit for your studio?

Use this information to target your marketing efforts:

• If your ideal client is on the PTA, connect with them about dropping off goody bags for an event or sponsoring a teacher breakfast. Ask if you can attend a meeting to learn more about their needs.
• If your ideal client is a parent who homeschools their children, reach out to local homeschool co-ops or engage with them on social media. Offer to arrange a dance studio field trip.
• If your ideal client works for a large corporation, see if you can outsource classes as part of their wellness program. And find out if they offer onsite childcare—your studio could present a monthly dance story time.

Knowing your buyer personas allows you to effectively target the right people, in the right places at the right times. Gain a higher percentage of ideal clients by reaching the families who you need—and who need you!

There’s a misconception in business that multi-tasking is right and necessary. It’s not!

Multi-tasking actually slows efficiency and makes you more prone to distraction. With a single focus, productivity improves and clear thinking reigns.

Establish these habits to improve your focus on one task at a time:

• Create a short to-do list every night before bed. Include only the top three tasks that need to be accomplished the next day.
• Stop checking email every hour. Designate a specific window of time for sending and receiving—and stick to it!
• Plan breaks throughout your workday. Take a short walk, stretch, or drink a glass of water. Your brain needs to decompress occasionally in order to stay focused.
• Follow through on tasks to completion. Small business owners are often guilty of starting—but not finishing—tasks. Hold yourself accountable through the entire process.
• Prevent distractions. Close your office door, silence your phone, and inform your staff (or family) that you shouldn’t be interrupted unless it’s an emergency.
• Remember to have a growth mindset. Your highest level of productivity will take practice! It will continue to improve as you build strength in these habits.

Management and leadership are two different behaviors: Management is task-oriented, with a focus on implementation. Leadership is people-oriented, with a focus on inspiration.

Sometimes it can seem as though they are in conflict, or that one is better than the other. But the truth is that you need both in your business. And as the studio owner, it’s up to you to determine who manages and who leads—and that includes yourself!

Here are the key differences in management and leadership:

As you look over this list, which “hat” do you wear most often? Manager or leader? Where do you need more practice or more help from the people on your team?

There is no perfect formula for management and leadership, but with self-awareness and skill development, you can make room for both.

Is there a gap in your studio sales—an area of opportunity you’re missing? Using the five key dance studio programs below, evaluate where you can “fill the gap” and upserve your people in an innovative way.

• Promotional. These programs attract prospective clients. Think trial classes, story time, birthday parties, Girl Scout badge workshops, and other microcommitments. Where can you expand (or deepen) your promotional programming?
• Discovery. This is the time kids discover the love of dance, usually through weekly classes or their first performance experience. What steps can you take to increase student involvement at this essential stage?
• Developmental. This level of programming is when dancers begin to feel like the studio is their “second home” because they belong to more than one class, they’ve joined a performing group, or they see themselves following in others’ footsteps. How are you capitalizing on this connection? 
• Ancillary. These are program “extras” that further support both your mission and the studio families, such as parents’ night out, winter break camp, adult classes, private lessons, and more. How often are you integrating these options into your regular operations?
• Community. This is when you intentionally connect the studio and its culture with your surrounding community. This might be through outreach or charity fundraising or partnerships with the local schools or healthcare system. What can you do to increase your community impact?

Does this story sound familiar?
You come back from the holidays refreshed, ready to tackle your to-do list: calls, emails, decisions—pretty soon, it’s a blur again. By the time you get home… whew! You might not even remember the last time you ate. This cycle can feel all too familiar for those of us in the business of running studios. Balancing the demands of leadership, serving students and families, and managing teams often means putting ourselves last. Over time, this leads to what’s often called surge capacity depletion: using all your energy for the urgent and not leaving room for the intentional. It’s how many people feel just before the holidays.

So how can we build sustainable refreshment and productivity into the new year?

The answer lies in priorities and planning. Sustainable productivity starts with identifying what matters most and focusing your energy on those priorities. While some tasks demand your personal attention, many can be delegated or shared (or even put on the shelf for a while!). This requires thoughtful planning and a realistic understanding of how much time something takes to complete. For me, it’s about creating a plan for the day that aligns with my bigger goals—and then sticking to it! It’s also about leaning into relationships with peers and teams to lighten the load and share encouragement. When we share strength and collaborate, we turn tasks into opportunities for connection and joy.

Approaching our workdays with intention allows us to dream again—about where we want to go and what’s possible for the future of the schools we lead. Running a studio is challenging, but it’s also an incredible opportunity to shape lives and communities. The path forward may not be linear, but it is there. Give yourself permission to envision what’s ahead, revise old goals, and dream bigger than before. Be gracious to yourself and others, and lean into the shared strength of our community.

As we approach 2025 with a renewed sense of energy, the possibilities are endless.

Just like Key Results Areas (KRAs), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are essential for helping employees understand their performance in alignment with your expectations. However, where KRAs focus on individual responsibilities, KPIs provide quantifiable insights into your studio’s overall success. They serve as measurable benchmarks that highlight achievements or uncover areas needing improvement.

By clearly identifying and tracking KPIs, you can:

• Evaluate the health of your studio’s operations.
• Align your team’s efforts with broader studio goals.
• Foster a culture of accountability and motivation.

Here are examples of impactful KPIs to consider:

Financial Metrics

• • Net profit per program: Understand the profitability of each offering.
  • Percent-to-full for classes/programs: Gauge the efficiency of class capacity usage.
  • Lead conversion rate: Measure how effectively inquiries translate into enrollments.

Customer Metrics

• • Total enrollment numbers: Track growth and engagement across your studio.
  • Units sold (merchandise or additional services): Analyze sales performance.
  • Retention percentage (YoY or MoM): Evaluate how well you’re maintaining your client base.

Staff Metrics

• • Parent complaint frequency: Address and resolve key concerns proactively.
  • Employee absenteeism rates: Measure staff reliability and identify trends.
  • Customer satisfaction scores: Collect feedback to enhance the client experience.

By integrating both KRAs and KPIs into your management practices, you can create a clear and actionable roadmap for your studio’s growth and ensure everyone is aligned on the journey to success. And when goals are met, make sure people are rewarded for their contributions!

Have you ever struggled with retaining your middle school and high school dancers? It is a common challenge for many studio leaders, as these students are faced with more challenging homework, a variety of school activities, and the magnetic pull of social commitments.

But dance, as we all know, can be the one consistent thing in a child’s life, providing them with the skills to become a confident young adult. Keep your tweens and teens engaged with a variety of opportunities that allow them to shine in their unique gifts and talents.

Classroom Assistants
Open your program to all students of a certain age or grade level who are willing to train and prove themselves responsible. Leaders grow leaders!

Dance Honor Society
Go the extra mile by opening a chapter of the National Honor Society for Dance Arts (www.ndeo.org). Recognize your students for their academic achievements and community involvement.

Mentorship 101
Assign studio peer buddies to encourage leadership and relationship-building across ages and dance styles. Host biweekly or monthly events focused around a key life lesson, such as perseverance, building a work ethic, or becoming a leader.

Dance Pathways
Meet with students and their parents to discuss how dance fits into their goals, in and out of the studio. “Success” can be defined in many ways: what does it look like to them and how can you help them get there?

Remind your students often about their value, contributions, and personal growth in dance. Connect with them personally by sharing staff and alumni stories. Appreciate where your dancers are now and help them see what’s possible in their future!

Getting new people in the door can be as simple as following an advertising formula or generating leads from a community event—but what about attracting the right clients?

It starts with identifying buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional description of your ideal client. It is a well-researched, thoughtful representation of the personality type (or types) that your studio serves best.

Try writing down a few character qualities of clients you already love working with. Are they hyper-involved at the studio? Hands-off? Obsessed with Pinterest? Stay-at-home parents? What about them makes them ideal to serve? Why are they a good fit for your studio?

Use this information to target your marketing efforts:

• If your ideal client is on the PTA, connect with them about dropping off goody bags for an event or sponsoring a teacher breakfast. Ask if you can attend a meeting to learn more about their needs.
• If your ideal client is a parent who homeschools their children, reach out to local homeschool co-ops or engage with them on social media. Offer to arrange a dance studio field trip.
• If your ideal client works for a large corporation, see if you can outsource classes as part of their wellness program. And find out if they offer onsite childcare—your studio could present a monthly dance story time.

Knowing your buyer personas allows you to effectively target the right people, in the right places at the right times. Gain a higher percentage of ideal clients by reaching the families who you need—and who need you!

Have you reached the point where you are ready to try out a new program idea, such as an additional performing group for young dancers or a daytime pre-professional track for teens? Or maybe you want to see if a class for special needs dancers will take off, or if an adult beginner series would fill your revenue gap.

No matter your ambition, follow these steps for proof of concept. Then, if you experience success, keep going full steam ahead!

• Identify what you want to build. Lay out the vision and imagine what it would be like if the new program is a hit.
• Audit your supplies and staff. What do you need to build this program? Who will run it?
  Set a budget so that you can measure financial progress. Determine the projected income and expenses, and how long it will take to turn a profit.
• Plan your marketing and inform your team members. Get all hands on deck when it comes to sales!
• Try it out for the short term. Fall and winter can be great times of the season to test-drive new programs before making them permanent (or moving on to try something else).

New programs are more likely to be a success if they’ve been launched following a well-thought plan. Remember to measure your numbers as you go (enrollment, expenses, profit) and ask for feedback too (surveys, emails, focus groups).

With an open mind and a commitment to great service, you can stop many complaints in their tracks by soliciting client feedback. Understanding pain points allows you to implement solutions before issues have a chance to grow beyond repair. While it’s true that not every concern can (or should) be addressed, many concerns can be mitigated with a keen eye on what people want.

Get ahead of problems with any or all of these feedback-gathering methods:

Family Survey
Through an online survey platform (or Google Forms), ask questions about how your clients would rate their experience with your company. Plant seeds of core values in your questions, such as “How would you rate your child’s enthusiasm for dance class?”

Program Questions
Using just two or three targeted questions to a small group, ask for your clients’ feedback about a specific class, opportunity, or event, such as whether your competitive students desire more or fewer hours of commitment.

Focus Group
Hand-select parents who represent different cross-sections of your studio population (like preschool, elementary, competitive, or special needs) and invite them to participate in a one-hour onsite discussion about a specific topic, such as recital or class levels.

Social Media Poll
An informal poll on social media can give you quick insight into busy parents’ lives and how you can serve them more effectively. Ask simple questions, such as their preferred form of communication or the easiest day of the week for costume pick-up.

Your success often parallels your productivity—but not all productivity is created equal! Sometimes what feels “productive” is really just “busy.” True productivity is rooted in spending focused time in your zone of genius, otherwise known as your sweet spot. For some studio owners, this is choreography and classroom work. For others it is creating new programs and marketing them, or building spreadsheets of financial plans. 

While all areas of your business need attention, the best use of your time is in the area that gives you joy and satisfaction. With that in mind, how can you better focus your time on what actually makes you more productive—and more successful?

Check in with yourself in these five areas:

1. Delegation. Ensure the other areas of your business are well-tended, such as hiring rockstar teachers or a monthly bookkeeping service. Equip your employees to make confident decisions and take on assigned tasks with enthusiasm. They also need permission to work in their zones of genius!
2. Automation. Systems streamline regular tasks and compress the time required for completion. Automate the predictable tasks, such as email or social media marketing, trial classes, registration, and more to free up your workflow.
3. Organization. Prioritize tasks and use a calendar that works for your lifestyle. What works for someone else might not be a good fit for you! Don’t let clutter—on your desk or in your mind—get in the way of your work.
4. Procrastination. Resist the urge to put off important or difficult tasks. Handle them first, in the early part of the day if possible, and feel the freedom to focus attention back into your sweet spot.
5. Distraction. Learn what works to focus your workflow. Is it shutting your office door for a specific window of time? Answering emails only in the afternoon? Dedicating uninterrupted family time three evenings a week? Commit to limiting distractions by taking control of your time.

Get proactive with your productivity and there’s no limit to your success!

Your employees are an invaluable resource to your business. They are arguably your biggest and best investment in order for your studio to achieve its mission!

But sometimes it’s a challenge to keep your staff engaged. They may seem disconnected or burned out, especially after these past two years. So how can you lift them up and empower them to do their best work?

Try these solutions to take your employees to the next level:

1. Equip and trust them to make decisions. That also means creating space for them to make mistakes. Gradually offer more training and responsibilities, allowing them a chance to prove themselves.
2. Role model positive problem-solving. Let them openly see how you handle conflict resolution and discuss what worked (and what didn’t).
3. When they bring a problem to your attention, ask “What do you recommend?” Listen. When possible, try their suggestions or allow them to take the solution to the finish line.
4. Celebrate wins, even small ones. Teams bond over shared effort. Be sure to reward your people for a job well done when goals are met.

As the studio leader, you are the coach—so don’t try to be one of the players! With your direction, patience, and encouragement, your team will step up their game.

Your studio’s culture is built from your values; it’s the way your mission and vision influence the atmosphere around your staff and students. Over time though, you may notice that the studio culture has shifted. It makes you wonder, “How did that happen? What can I do to fix it?”

The answer is to conduct a culture audit of your business. Evaluate these five questions about your studio culture, and respond to any “no” answer with immediate action steps to make improvements. The best part about making changes is that you will start to see (and feel) a positive shift right away!

Is the mission of your studio prominently displayed and understood?
Consider adding a culture poster and using it as a training tool for your staff and a discussion point for your students.

Is the work being done consistent with your business goals?
It’s key to communicate to your employees how their work affects the organization. Include them in goal-setting exercises when possible, and reward them as milestones are achieved.

How well does your studio handle problems and conflicts?
Every business has problems to solve, but if you are experiencing the same problems on repeat, it is time to explore different solutions.

How are people recognized for their efforts and milestones?
Everyone likes to be acknowledged for a job well done. Find out what is meaningful to your team members so that you are prepared to reward them when the time comes.

Are there meaningful growth opportunities at your studio?
Growth opportunities help your people see what they are capable of. Your new staff member might be ready for more responsibility, or your veteran teacher may want to add an admin role. Young students may want to try a performing group, and older ones might be interested in assisting in the classroom. Develop the opportunities so you can develop the people!

As the business owner, you naturally get pulled in many directions when you are at the studio. Trying to get proactive work done in a reactive environment can feel impossible. Sometimes it can feel like the hours of day disappear right before your eyes!

Is it possible to take control of your time and still feel productive at the studio? Yes! But it requires planning for specific time intervals with specific objectives.

Here’s how to get more strategic about your studio presence:

20-minute solutions

• One-on-one teacher check-ins. Use these planned yet informal conversations to personally catch up with your staff and ask how things are going. Unlike a performance review, this casual meeting focuses on their goals and dreams—and how working at the studio will help their achievement.
• “Dance Pathways” meetings. Different from a standard parent/student conference, a Dance Pathways meeting is a mentorship session for discussing dance goals and opportunities. It’s also a chance to plant seeds about class progress and placement.

30-minute solutions

• “Meet the Owner” events. Once a month (or every other month) set up a coffee station in the lobby and invite parents to sit in on a Q&A with you. Prepare to share things like how the studio was founded, your vision for the future, and alumni happenings.
• Lobby loops. Walking the lobby offers you the chance to hear the hallway buzz while peeking into classes and offering encouragement to the dancers. These are short bursts of time where you can immerse yourself in the daily experiences of clients.

40-minute solutions

• Teacher training sessions. In just one or two short sessions a month, highlight a key dance class concept or classroom management strategy to boost your teachers’ confidence. Remind them that you have been in their shoes!
• Class visits. Rotate in to observe classes periodically, and take notes on the teachers’ performance as well as the students’ engagement and behavior. Use what you learn to share feedback with your team (and prepare for those teacher training sessions!).