Growing the business and exploring muddy waters

About the process of taking my business into the world of online yoga videos.

I’ve recently taken the plunge. Just basically thrown myself into deep muddy waters… A very very deep muddy puddle (sorry I’ve got a 3 and a 5 year old so there would have to be at least one Peppa Pig reference…)

Anyway what I’m talking about is taking my yoga business online. Just to give you a little bit of background. I’m a mum of two (as we established) and I’m a yoga teacher. I turned my passion of teaching yoga into my business about two and a half years ago when I decided that I didn’t want to go back to my 9–5 job after my second maternity leave. I was working in the luxury travel industry which was fun and very glamorous at the time of course but didn’t suit me so well once I had children.

Starting my own business

It was a real turning point for me when I made the decision to start my own business around what I actually love… yoga! So I did the teacher training and started teaching classes! Sounds easy doesn’t it? Well I can tell you it wasn’t. It turns out that it’s actually quite difficult to fill weekly yoga classes and make sure you don’t end up making a loss after you’ve paid for the venue, marketing, online systems etc… but I made it work. I’ve got 3 regular Hatha yoga classes now, teach postnatal yoga to mums with babies and family yoga to parents with their kids. And I love it!

My poor husband definitely got sucked into something that he didn’t sign up for… yoga mats and props everywhere in the house, being left alone with the kids while I am out teaching (no sympathy here, sorry…) and having to answer my endless questions about filming! Filming? Yes, about a year ago I decided that making videos for YouTube might be a good idea and help me take my business online. I was already running a Yoga blog, had a presence on social media so it just made sense to me.

The world of video production

Creating yoga videos is a whole other ballgame as it turns out! I had no idea about lighting, camera settings and editing videos so it has been a steep learning curve. I dived right into the world of microphones, lighting, cameras and video editing systems… and can’t say I haven’t come back out yet!

I never got very far with YouTube to be honest as it turned out to be much more work than I had anticipated. I do have a good number of yoga videos mainly for busy mums and families up but the YouTube yoga market is crowded!

I then came across Udemy which is a online learning platform and you find all sorts of tutorials and online courses on there, from webdesign to training your dog, from martial arts to yoga! I took a couple of yoga courses on there just to see how it works and I loved it so decided to go for it.

Starting to create…

Last year was all about learning, getting as much information as possible, learn about list-building, online marketing, social media and video editing. This year my word or mantra for 2017 is CREATE… I’ve written this in BIG letters on my vision board above my desk. To me it means start creating things that will take my business further!

And yes I have been doing this with YouTube but YouTube is free content. There is not that much of a risk or commitment at the end from my side. Udemy, however, meant that I was asking people to pay for what I’m producing so this had to be spot on! Scary stuff!! What if nobody likes what I’m doing??

Getting it right

The good thing about Udemy is that they’re really checking the quality of whatever is uploaded. I produced a short test video with our Panasonic GH2 and a little Rhodes microphone plugged into my iphone. I thought this should really be decent enough quality (I was so proud of myself that I could handle a separate audio file and synchronize it with the video… thank you to my lovely husband!) BUT it was rejected.

I tried different locations in the house, different lighting, different microphones but every time the test video was rejected. Not even because of the video but because of the audio! There was apparently white noise in the background… (I personally don’t think the white noise was so much of an issue as the noise from the cars and motorbikes outside but for Udemy it was all about white noise…)

The next test video I tried in a different room which was quieter but not big enough, bright enough but not “nice” enough… I would have had to move furniture, re-decorate the room etc… it just didn’t work out.

I went back to room number 1 which is our dining room (we call it dining room but really it’s a multipurpose room, laundry, buggy, yoga stuff… as we never eat in there) and I started editing the audios on Audacity and they suddenly became a lot better. I finally passed the test… yay!!! So the filming could begin. This was back in December 2016 so just over six months ago at the time I’m writing this.

Ready to give up…

I worked out my plan and I started filming. 14 videos each about 15–20 minutes, a short trailer and two audios. That doesn’t sound like that much in real time, right? Well it has taken me until about two weeks ago! I think I must have filmed videos 1–4 about six times. Everything was against me at one stage… the microphone didn’t seem to be working, it made a crackling noise each time I moved, ambulances outside, people ringing the doorbell, forgot to put lights on, forgot to turn noisy heater off, forgot to put the microphone on, you name it…

I was ready to give up. I had enough of editing videos, I was extremely achy (you need to bear in mind that I had a full on workout every time I was filming!) and very frustrated. I didn’t even enjoy my practice any more at one point and was questioning what I was doing. I went back home to Germany over Easter and just took my mind off it. I completely put it on hold and just realized that I had become a little bit too obsessed to get it done that I didn’t enjoy the process anymore. I just needed a break and spend time with family and friends.

Then I came back refreshed and set myself a goal to finish the course by the end of May and I did it! I just used the two hours I’ve got without kids a week to completely focus on the project and take it one little video at a time. Film 15 minutes, edit, upload, done. And so on and so on until I finished video number 14 and could finish off the course!

Within a day it was accepted by Udemy so I must have done something right along the way! Yayyyy!!!

Introducing it to the world

About a week ago I started slowly rolling it out to my yoga students, friends and family and earned my first $250. That might not sound like much to you and as my husband points out 80% of that is charity so from family and friends and people who know my but you know what… it makes me feel really good. Because it’s something that I have created and that is obviously of value for people.

I put my heart and soul into this product. Teaching yoga comes easily to me but this little project has tested me in ways that I never seemed possible. I’m all about believing in the power of the universe but at some stage I thought the universe really didn’t want me to do this. Now I think it was really testing my persistence and my tenacity… and that is part of being an entrepreneur, right?

So I’m slowly growing my business one step at a time and can’t wait to see what’s next!

This post is not about selling my course but about the process of creating it! It’s a post that I really wanted to write to remind myself and everyone else that the journey is just as important as the end result! If you are, however, interested to find out more then do visit my website www.yogaberry.net and you can find my udemy course here.