4 Ways To Save Your Dance Studio $$ This Summer
Summer is just around the corner, and whether you’re a studio that goes into full summer dance camp mode, or your use the season for continuing education and prepping for the fall, finding ways to bring money in to our dance studios is always in season.
Today I’m sharing 4 ways to save your dance studio money and tips for how to have a profitable dance studio. If you’ve watched the movie (or read the book) Confessions of a Shopaholic, you might remember the scene where the heroine decides to get her money life figured out and reads a book that tells her to either #1, make more money, or #2 save money. The tips today are a bit of both, but all are definitely easy to employ, so grab your notebook and let’s dive in!
#1 Use What You Already Have
If you’re a studio that runs summer programs, go through your inventory (or make one if you don’t already have one) on what materials you already have that can be reused so you’re not buying more craft supplies, fabric, music, etc. Challenge yourself to find creative ways to use what you already have to save some dough. Pinterest is great for this, or even checking with other studio owners to see what they do!
If your studio doesn’t run summer camps or programs, now is a great time to still take stock and inventory, so that when performance or competition rolls around you already have a clear picture of what you have and what you won’t need to spend money on.
#2 Have a Garage/Studio Sale
After you’ve done number 1, you may find that you have a bunch of stuff that you don’t need, or want, so rather than dumping it, hold a studio garage sale to generate some extra funds. You can also invite your dance families to bring their things over to make it more fun and have a wider variety of things people might be interested in buying. And, BONUS - you can use this as an opportunity to have an open house of sorts for your studio. Have brochures and info on classes ready to hand out so if an interested and curios family walks, you’re ready to enroll them on the spot. More students = more money!
#3 Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize!
This is a great time of decide on your priorities for the rest of this year and next. Do you want to focus on competitions? Maybe go from two recitals to one? Maybe you need to get more parent volunteers involved to save on costs in hiring outside help.
Summer is the halfway mark in the year, so it’s a good time to take stock of what’s working and what isn’t, so you can have a clear action plan moving forward on what you want for your studio. Doing this now will not only make you feel better, but it will save you time and money down the road so you don’t have to scramble to make decisions, which can often result in spending money you didn’t plan on, or want to spend.
#4 Upgrade and Automate
This is the most technical of my tips, but don’t freak out, because it’s still totally doable with a little planning.
Putting money aside for your business savings or emergencies is vital, but it often gets passed over for more immediate needs: costumes, payroll, etc. But banks and online services make it so easy now to automate your banking that there’s no good reason not to use this tool.
Consider setting up a new account for your business, or adjusting the ones you already have so that weekly, monthly, whatever works for you, an amount is deducted from your main account and automatically transferred to a savings or emergency fund. This way you don’t have to think about it or schedule it in, and I bet you won’t even notice that extra $10, $20, whatever dollars being gone from your account.
For more on this, check out the video below from one of my favorite business mavens, Marie Forleo.
There you go dance teacher friends! My best tips to help your dance studio bring in money now. I hope this article brought you some insight and inspiration, and I’d love to know which of these tips you plan on using first! Tell me in the comments below!