Looking to start a yoga business, or to jump-start your current one? Learn vital techniques about marketing, business plans, finances, and management, plus how to bring a yogic intention to it all.

Thursday, July 7 — 9:00am - 10:15am
Building Community
Learn how Deborah Williamson grew a small, unknown studio in Wisconsin into a large, dynamic local community with a client base that reaches all over the globe. The secret is similar to throwing a great party: through invitation, service, relationships, contribution, and cleanup, you'll learn to grow and maintain your own expanding community in your town.

Deborah Williamson is a Vinyasa Yoga Teacher, the founder and owner of four Midwest Power Yoga studios, a business consultant, and a life coach in Wisconsin. She teaches retreats, teacher trainings, and workshops and is known for her style, humor, and deep humanity.

Thursday, July 7 — 10:30am - 11:45am
Creating A Viable Studio
Learn how to use high-level strategic planning to create an annual budget and identify simple metrics to gauge the health of your business. Come discover how to analyze your operating expenses, incentivize your teachers, and easily evaluate your efforts from month to month.

Meg McCall joined MINDBODY's San Luis Obispo office in 2009 as the Director of Marketing. In her year at MINDBODY, she has helped grow the organization 60 percent, in part, by managing a $2.5 million marketing budget. Meg holds BA in Behavioral Science & Law and a Masters of Business Administration from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She served as both Director of Marketing & Communications and Vice President for Marketing and Campaign for the Madison United Way and was the Marketing Manager for UW-Madison's Division of Information Technology, where she spearheaded a campus-wide IT strategic planning process and helped motivate and train the campus's 41,000 students and 15,000 faculty to use enterprise systems and adopt the latest learning technologies.

Thursday, July 7 — 11:45am - 12:15pm
MINDBODY Software Demo
Learn how to use MINDBODY Business Management Software (optional)

Thursday, July 7 — 1:00pm - 2:15pm
Opening a Yoga Studio 101
Learn key elements to building a successful yoga studio, including the basics of marketing, finances, staffing, scheduling, merchandising, community building, and karma yoga. In this fun and interactive workshop, you'll learn from the founder of YogaFit, who has helped thousands of students open their own studios.

Beth Shaw is the president and founder of YogaFit, the largest yoga school in North America. She is an internationally recognized yoga expert, author, and entrepreneur, with more than two dozen fitness books and DVDs to her name. Beth is also a well-known animal-rights advocate who sits on the National Council for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

Thursday, July 7 — 2:30pm - 3:45pm
Visualizing Your Company: The Branding of Your Business
The long-limbed yogi in Abkhazian. The chakras. The color green. All of these elements are used, and often overused, in the visual branding of yoga studios. What tells your story? What words and pictures represent your studio? Like yoga, your brand needs a strong foundation in order to grow. Come discover how to create a brand that connects with people and their product or service.

Susan Fireside, owner of Winter and Construction Design, specializes in branding and identity with a focus on giving a visual presence to companies so that they're an experience, not just a name. With more than 20 years in design and a special focus on health and wellness marketing, Susan has a deep understanding of the complexities involved in telling the yoga story.

Thursday, July 7 — 4:00pm - 5:15pm
Legal Issues Underlying Yoga Studio Creation and Management
Opening and running a yoga studio requires sound legal preparation. In this informative class, we'll discuss how to form business entities; contract with teachers, employees, students, web/ad consultants, business partners, and landlords; comply with labor, workers compensation, taxes, and consumer protection agencies; obtain insurance; and protect trademarks and trade secrets.

Ron Weikers is a partner in YogaBalance Yoga Studio in Manchester, NH. He is a high-technology attorney with Software-Law.com, where he handles technology licensing and litigation matters for clients across the country. Ron, an adjunct professor of law at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, has authored several books and numerous articles on legal issues.

Ann Weikers is a registered yoga teacher and a partner in YogaBalance Yoga Studio in Manchester, NH. Ann has been practicing law for 21 years and currently works as in-house counsel in the property and casualty insurance industry.

Friday, July 8 — 9:00am - 10:15am
How to Manage Teachers and Staff Effectively
Learn how to create effective policies and procedures for teachers, staff, and volunteers in order to manage with ease and grow your studio. As owner and director of Moksha Yoga in Chicago for over 12 years, Daren will share his experience managing 40 teachers and 60 volunteer staff. A copy of his studio’s policies and procedures will be included.
Notes: Discussion and lecture.

Daren Friesen is the director and founder of the Moksha Yoga Center in Chicago. He has developed his own challenging style of vinyasa flow that encourages students to integrate yin and yang (softness and strength) into their practice and, ultimately, their lives.

Friday, July 8 — 10:30am - 11:45am
Online Marketing
Online marketing offers the most powerful and inexpensive techniques you can use to market and grow your business. We'll discuss how to use email marketing services, as well as the latest techniques for producing compelling newsletters and "e-blasts" designed to keep your clients connected to your business. Learn general web-design practices to help your business website give your clients a clear and compelling message. Finally, learn how online advertising works, and how you can use it to make your business stand out from the rest.

Nicole Chetaud is an experienced events professional and dedicated yoga instructor. In 2010, Nicole joined MINDBODY, Inc., where she oversees the marketing, sales, and planning of MINDBODY University (MBU), a highly successful business intensive hosted around the world. In her role as sales manager, Nicole also presents on technology and business at MBU events. Nicole has also been teaching Bikram Yoga since 2005, and has recently completed her 200-hour certification with YogaWorks.

Friday, July 8 — 11:45am - 12:15pm
Mindbody Software Demo
Learn how to use MINDBODY Business Management Software (optional)

Friday, July 8 — 1:00pm - 2:15pm
Social Media Marketing
Allow your business to soar! We'll uncover the many ways that social-media marketing can grow your business and reach more people. We'll explore GroupOn, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, interactive websites, eblasts, and more. Come think outside the box in ways that will create new paths for people to find yoga and join the yoga community.

Eric Paskel, MA, MFCC, is founder and chief guru of Yoga Shelter, a yoga company he created in 2004. With six studios in Michigan and California, and more opening across the country, Paskel travels the world teaching yoga that rocks and awakens, and classes, lectures, retreats and trainings. Eric has taught tens of thousands of yoga classes and trained hundreds of people to teach yoga. He is a yoga teacher and licensed marriage family child therapist who has helped people get healthy and break addictions for more than 20 years. He is a presenter at yoga conferences, speaking on marketing, social media and relationships, and is the personal guru of many Hollywood celebrities. He began a life of introspection in 1986 when he committed to overcoming his own addictions and challenges. Eric has taught stress management courses for Chrysler Corporation and was the inspiration for Real Men Do Yoga. Eric lives in Los Angeles.

Friday, July 8 — 2:30pm - 3:45pm
Other Revenue Streams
A thriving yoga studio is built around a hub of drop in classes but to keep your students' commitment to their practice growing and to make your business really hum, retail, workshops, events, retreats and trainings must orbit that dynamic center. In this talk you will learn the why's and how's of adding ancillary revenue streams to your studios core business.

Joanna McCracken graduated from the YogaWorks 200 hour teacher training in 2009, and the YogaWorks 300 hour teacher training in 2010. She has been with YogaWorks as an Export Program Manager for the last year and a half after 3 years working in film publicity.

Laura Singer has held the role of Export Program Manager at YogaWorks since 2009. Prior that time, since 2005 she worked with YogaWorks to help develop workshops and teacher training in their Los Angeles, Domestic and European Markets. She graduated from the YogaWorks 200 hour teacher training in 2006, and will be finishing up the YogaWorks 300 hour teacher training this month.

Friday, July 8 — 4:00pm - 5:15pm
Greening Your Studio
We know that everything is interconnected. As yogis and yoginis, it is our task to illuminate this truth and thereby reveal the deeper meaning of yoga. How does this show up in the business world of yoga? It is our role to lead by example so that we conduct ourselves and our businesses with total integrity. We'll examine key strategies, insights, and organizing principles gathered from Pamela's experience in operating one of the largest green yoga studios in the Midwest for nearly a decade. Learn how to transform your beliefs and your business, and how to effectively empower individuals to make conscious choices through education, action, and love. After all, are you looking to teach people to touch their toes, or would you prefer to inspire them to touch the world?

Pamela Bliss, founder and director of YogAsylum in Brookfield, WI, holds degrees in transpersonal psychology, nursing, and yoga and ecology. Over the past ten years, she has studied yoga extensively with globally renowned master teachers, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from whom she has received empowerments and initiations. Pamela presents at conferences internationally, and her work has been featured in numerous local, national, and international publications and other types of media. She was the national moderator for the Green Yoga Association's studio pilot program, teaching studios across America to adapt to green business practices. Pamela naturally exudes the ability to meet people where they are in total acceptance and love, which allows her to deliver the transformative power of yoga directly into people's hearts.

Friday, July 8 — 5:30pm - 6:30pm
Networking Reception
The YogaWorks networking reception is designed as a chance for you to exchange ideas, best practices, and cards with your fellow business conference participants. We'll have wine, snacks, a brief structured exercise to facilitate conversation and connections, and plenty of time to mingle.