Starting an online yoga business from home might seem a daunting task. Especially during a global pandemic. But that’s exactly what Sandstone UK Yoga and Pilates franchise did in just 72 hours!
Sandstone opened its 4th studio in the Cotswold village of Broadway in January 2020. Each yoga studio franchise has its own owners and individual booking portal linked to a central customer and finance database provided by the world’s leading software supplier. The 2020 Sandstone Academy accredited 200-hour Yoga franchise Teacher Training course was also fully booked and ready to start in March.
In March 2020 numbers remained strong as lockdown approached but it became in increasingly clear to franchise owner and founder Michelle Nicklin that the world was changing dramatically. In partnership with the four yoga franchisees the studios transformed to provide a full live online yoga and Pilates schedule through a new virtual SuperStudio, pooling talent and expertise to offer a packed and varied selection of 30+ classes a week - all put into place over the UK lockdown weekend and operating a mobile yoga business from home.
After the technology bedded in, Sandstone honoured existing passes with a discount and offered refunds and a first class free for new customers. In ‘doing the right thing’ for existing clients and by expanding and diversifying its offer at a reduced cost to provide online yoga, Sandstone incredibly retained around 80% of its customer base.
Online Teacher Training also continued using the new web-based platform instead of the studio environment, and the current yoga teacher training cohort are progressing well.
The range of online yoga classes continue to expand will teachers from across all four physical studios offering live classes at the SuperStudio, including founder Michelle who was inspire to get ‘back on the mat’ every Wednesday evening. With yoga for beginner online as well, new clients are arriving each week.
On Monday May 19 Sandstone formally expanded its mobile online yoga franchise business just 8 weeks after the shock of lockdown. It’s new option is the Petra package, a yoga studio franchise opportunity to develop a mobile yoga business from home through the SuperStudio, with the opportunity for community-based yoga classes when rules on physical distance are relaxed. The new option is supported by a detailed financial business model to demonstrate viability and profitability against a range of scenarios over 1-5 years.
Sandstone continues to offer its Marrakesh Package of a full, owned yoga studio business but this is also now linked to the SuperStudio to generate active as well as emerging passive income from specialist courses and workshops which will soon be offered as online only recorded purchases.
The Petra package retails at around 50% of the Marrakesh package, offering a lower entry point into this vibrant business and the ultimate flexible option to maximise home and dynamic working patterns in the current and future environment. Inquires have already been strong in the first week.
Michelle said: “As soon as it became clear that the issue was likely to have significant and longer term implications for offering classes, workshops and training, we got the whole team together to understand what we could do for our customers and how we could adapt as an online yoga business.
“Our head office team and the franchises responded magnificently and with lots of hard work, belief and passion we reinvented what we do and how we do it in a matter of days; and have now build on that to offer future franchisees a new option to start their own private yoga business from home.
“We were determined to adapt and respond, however hard it felt at the time. And today we have an ever stronger online yoga classes offer and a new and more flexible way for others to join us in a business which is now optimised for the current and future world. It’s not been easy but I am so proud of how we worked through this and have come out better, stronger and more focused than ever.”