What scares you?

Apart from this photo of course!

Running a business can be tough.

Many of us don’t even think of it as a business as we love what we do so much.

But what scares you about running your dance classes, parties and events?

We’ll share our fears with you seeing as it’s Halloween today – and we will also share how we’ve conquered those fears so that we can sleep easy at night!

 

Our Fear: We worried about teachers that we’d booked for parties and events becoming ill, running late in traffic, or not being able to turn up for the party.

We just couldn’t bear it if a child was left without a party on their birthday.

And, we didn’t think it was fair to send an ill teacher to a party.

Our Resolution: So, we now have a back up in place. We always book a second teacher to be on standby for parties, we pay £10 to be on standby, but obviously the full party wage if they are required to stand in at the last minute.  This not only gives us piece of mind, but also enables our teachers to have piece of mind too.

 

 

 

 

 

Our Fear: We were scared of working with new teachers.

How would we know if they would do a good job?

How would we know if they would understand the Popdance brand?

We knew we had to work with more amazing dance teachers as we had the demand from customers.

Our Resolution: We always work with experienced and qualified dance teachers and fitness instructors.

We go over cvs, we obtain all relevant paperwork and we also invite our teachers to come and meet us at our Open Days and Auditions as well as to visit any of our existing classes.

Our IDTA qualified Creative Directors, who head up the dance side of Popdance, are very involved in the recruitment process and, if we have any queries with regards to cvs, we request dance footage so that we can see those dancers in action.

 

 

Our Fear: How would we fill dance classes, events and get party bookings

Just because we were offering these services, that doesn’t mean to say that people were just going to turn up

Our Resolution: Marketing, marketing, marketing. Having worked in Marketing for 14 years, market research and advertising for 6, and TV for 1, we knew that Marketing was key!

Data capture was also an essential part of our business growth which enabled us to keep in contact with customers who already liked what we did and wanted to know what we were doing next.

Setting up videos, downloads and weekly marketing tips for dance teachers and fitness instructors became a habit for us and we feature tons of these on our Popdance Teacher Website to share with all our teachers.

 

 

 

Our Fear: How would we stand out from the crowd?

With so many dance classes, fitness programmes and activities out there, what would make us stand out?

Why would people want to come and dance with us?

Our Resolution: As a customer of my own business, I knew that I loved Popdance. Not being a dance teacher myself, I knew, as a customer, that Popdance was there for everyone, whether you had two left feet or you were the next Kylie Minogue who I am still aiming to be like ;) – but being a customer of my own business, I knew that as long as I and my fellow Popdancers were having fun, then we were doing a good job.

We stuck to our guns on what we were offering – dance routines to pop music – that’s it. No ballet, no street, simply dance routines to pop music that was open to everyone.

We kept it fun, friendly, no pressure, with excellent customer service, caring about our customers and asking them for their feedback and opinions – making them and our dance teachers very much part of the Popdance family – it sounds cheesey, but that’s what it’s all about – without our amazing teachers and customers, we have no business – and we love our business and what we do, but we also know that we need to listen too! ;)

 

 

 

So, these are just a few of our fears that we wanted to share with you this Halloween. We’d love to know yours – feel free to share them via email [email protected] and let us know if you found these tips useful

If you would like to receive our free weekly marketing tips for dance teachers and fitness instructors and you haven’t yet signed up – you can do so HERE

If you would like to find out more about working with us – take a look HERE or email [email protected]

Or if you would like to meet us in the flesh – we are not scary! – then join us on one of our Open Days – find your nearest one HERE

Have a fabulous weekend – mwah ha ha ha