I talk to a lot of dance studio owners every week. It’s pretty common for them to be worried about how many studios there are in their area. Most are convinced that this is why they don’t have more students themselves, or why they can’t charge more for the lessons that they offer.

 

I understand the concern. I used to believe that about my own studio and my own city. But, I’m going to respectfully push back just a little bit. 

 

Just last week I spoke with a studio owner that is charging most new students $45 per month after a $25 registration fee. She was convinced that that rate was all that her area would support. When I asked her about the studio in her city that was charging $180 per month for classes she didn’t really have a great answer as to why that studio was able to command such drastically different prices. (She even knew the other studio owner.)

 

But that got me thinking.

“The only thing that had changed was me.”

As recently as 2011 I had students at my own studio paying about $50 per month for one-time per week classes. Today I don’t have a program for normal beginner students that costs less than $149 per month after a $199 down payment on the total cost of the program.

What had changed?

What was different about my studio today, and my studio in 2011?

My city hadn’t changed.

The economy wasn’t 3 times better.

More studios had popped up in my area than before.

The only thing that had changed was me.

There are really three reasons that the number of dance studios in your area doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.

1. They’re all doing it wrong too.
2. You can stand out.
3. You only have to be SLIGHTLY better.

I couldn’t see that as well so many years ago.

Now I understand it. The studios in my area that are competing for customers really don’t know what they’re doing either. They’re running a dance studio because they love what they teach, not because they’re great business owners.

But, even if they were, there are still great ways that you can make your own studio stand out. What is it that you do better than anyone else? What is your Unique Selling Proposition? Does your marketing actively focus on that?

Also, you don’t have to bet 10 times better than your competition at anything to have 10 times the impact that they do. You only need to be slightly better, and then do a great job of SHOWING THAT TO EVERYONE.

So what’s the solution to an area that’s overrun with competition? 

Solution

1. Stop paying attention to what everyone else is doing.

2. It really just means there is less room for error – create systems, follow the numbers, pay attention

If most of the studio owners are not marketing and advertising correctly, and most are not running their businesses efficiently, we shouldn’t be following them, copying them, or even paying attention to what they’re doing. IF YOU WANT TO BE AVERAGE THEN DO WHAT AVERAGE PEOPLE DO.

For most dance studios this simply means getting themselves just a little bit more organized and finding systems (and the right people) that can automate most of their work for them and free them up to actually focus on the things that make a long-term difference in the success of their studio.

You can do this. Now get to work!