When planning for your yoga business’s success, it is important to keep your finances top of mind. Many people shy away from numbers, but when you know what your KPIs are, you can set smart goals based on actual numbers, you can track them, and set yourself up for financial success!
KPIs are going to help you lead a better business, financially. In fact, we like to say that KPIs help you Keep Potential Income.
Not sure where to start with KPIs, or even what that acronym means in the first place? Not to worry. In this post, we will help you understand what KPIs are and why they’re important for your business. Then, you’ll learn which ones you need to track in your yoga business so that you can whip up your financial secret sauce so that you can breathe as easily as your customers.
Let’s get started!
What Are KPIs?
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicators. They are the secret sauce to your studio’s success, and they’re not that hard to put in place!
Breath is the fuel of yoga, and money is the fuel of business. Being able to track your own growth is critical if you want a sustainable business that doesn’t drain you.
Therefore, it is vital to track your KPIs. When you track your KPIs, you track the numbers within your business. These numbers indicate the performance of the business overall. You can use these numbers to make decisions about where to adjust your business so that you can improve specific areas.
The most successful businesses we work with have a keen understanding of their KPIs, and how each one affects their overall business – whether that be their top-line or bottom-line revenue, the amount of time they spend in or on their business, and more.
Why do KPIs Matter in a Yoga Business?
KPIs matter because they provide quantifiable information about the overall health of your business.
When you have information – real data – on your business, then you can make informed decisions about where to make changes.
KPIs provide the information you need to set both short and long term goals, as well as help you understand how to get there. When you know what affects your overall business, and how moving those KPIs around can help you achieve your business goals, then you truly have the keys to the business of your dreams.
Your KPIs give you control and power over your business. When you track your KPIs, you’ll know exactly which levers to pull and how they will impact your business growth. They take the guesswork out of decision-making and give you confidence like you’ve never had before.
What KPIs Do You Need in Your Yoga Business?
Now that you know why you need KPIs, it’s time to create your systems. If money is the fuel of business, systems are also the foundation.
Each business is different, but every yoga business MUST have the following KPIs in place:
- Total revenue
- Total expenses
- Net profit and loss
You can typically find these numbers in your business software or accounting software.
As a reminder, your net profit or loss is found by subtracting your expenses from your revenue.
Additionally, we recommend that Yogapreneurs track the following KPIs:
- Leads
- 1st visits
- 1st visit return rate
- Into purchase rate
- Intro conversion rate
- Churn rate
- Lifetime value
- Year over year retention
- Capacity utilization
These numbers are perfect indicators of the basic inflow and outflow of your business, and each of these numbers are interconnected.
In yoga, we learn about the mind-body-spirit connection. In business, the overall health and flow of your business is connected to the health of all areas of your business. Therefore, it is beneficial to track more than just the basics.
Therefore, other numbers we recommend that every Yogapreneur tracks are:
- Referral sources
- Cost of client acquisition
- Individual staff performance
- Retention rate
- Revenue by teacher
- Class performance
- Revenue by class type
- The average number of clients per class
- The actual NET revenue per:
- Class
- Client
- Visit
Some of these numbers might require time at the end of each week, month, and quarter to track. However, our coaches at the Yogapreneur Collective can also help you track these numbers, and hold you accountable for finding these numbers at regular intervals.
How to Track & Set Goals With KPI’s
Once you know what KPIs you want to track, it’s time to set goals and start tracking your progress toward them!
Here is how we recommend setting your data-driven goals:
- Areas of Opportunity – Discern where you have the most opportunity to improve, and focus your attention and efforts there
- Team Members – Determine who is responsible for the particular goal
- Set the Goal – Write it down, and make sure everyone is bought in to the success of this goal
- Define the Process – Know exactly what needs to be done to achieve the goal
- Timeframe – Decide when it will be accomplished by. You may need to set smaller goals to help you achieve it, and use those benchmarks to reevaluate the process or timeframe. Decide if it is a monthly, quarterly, or yearly goal.
Once your goals are set, it is time to track them. It is important to have tracking in place because if you don’t, it’s like taking a pose out of alignment – your goal will fall apart, and will take up more of your time than it was worth. A lack of tracking will do you more harm than good.
We recommend tracking your goals in one of the following places:
- Mindbody spreadsheet – Can be found in your Mindbody platform
- The Yogapreneur Collective MBO KPI spreadsheet – Download it here
- The Yogapreneur Collective Wellness Living KPI spreadsheet – Get it in the YC
- Build your own spreadsheet – Take any of the above and create a spreadsheet that works for you
Next Steps
Understanding your business on this level is empowering. When you know how you can change one thing in your business and see the ripple effect of it, you will have the power to steer your business in any direction you want to go.
KPIs give you the knowledge and power to make effective decisions in your yoga business.
Your next steps are to:
- Decide on your goals
- Choose which KPIs will get you there
- How you will track your KPIs and your progress
We recommend that you start with a KPI sheet, which you can grab in the Yogapreneur Collective network.
If you need additional assistance creating and tracking your KPIs, schedule a consultation with a Yoga Business Coach here. Together, we can help you understand where the areas of opportunity are in your business, and what is holding you back from achieving your goals.
Systems are the form of a business. With the Yogapreneur Collective, we can help you breathe as easily as your clients by implementing ethical, sustainable systems based on YOUR unique numbers.
