Make Money With Your Website Through Design – Passive Income

 

Today, we’re talking about websites that sell.

First of all, I want to make you money. But overall, when you’re creating a website or a landing page or any sort of marketing material, the steps that we’ll learn today are going to be very useful for anything else that you create in the future, because we’re going to have certain concepts in mind and we can just rinse and repeat. I’m all about being efficient and effective.

#1 Must-Have: Clarity in your customer journey.

If the customer is confused, they’re not going to buy. They’re going to leave. They’re out. Peace. 

People have the attention span of an ant, and the reason is your phone, your child, your distractions, all add up in life so we need things to be given to us quickly. I mean, we can order something from Amazon today and it will arrive in our house tomorrow or sometimes the same day. So we’re used to instant gratification. If that doesn’t happen on your website or on your landing page, a sales page for your product or program, then guess what? You’re toast.

It’s all about them. The client doesn’t want to really sit there and learn all about you, like read things that don’t pertain to them. There’s an emotional connection that needs to be made and I’m going to ask you, “What is the first thing that they see and feel?” Feel here is the magic word. 

So if you’re speaking to them on that emotional level versus a logical level, then great. But if you’re not, ask yourself, “What can I change? How can I connect with them?” and this applies to you if you already have a website or a landing page or if you need to build one.

So what makes a customer stay? Let’s map their journey. We’re going to look at this from the bottom-up. If you were making it all about them, then we really need to understand who they are.

#2 Must-Have: Appeal to emotion in your copywriting.

Emotion sells, right? Psychology Today, which is a very renowned magazine and who’ve actually knocked on just one study, but several studies about purchasing behavior, “Studies show that positive emotions toward a brand have a far greater influence on consumer loyalty than trust and other judgments, which are based on a brand’s attributes.”

A brand’s attributes are the “why” behind its existence. We’re creating a culture that indoctrinates your customer into feeling seen, heard, and loved.

For example, I worked with my client Poppy and Libby, and we were creating a website for their retreat business. When I opened this website, guess what happened? It was like fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact. So we had to recreate the entire site, recreate the entire marketing approach so that it was more why centered and made it easy for people to engage with, and ultimately, purchase from.

#3 Must-Have: Highlight your strengths in your Call To Action.

So if we know our potential customer’s problem, which means we know our client inside and out, we know their pain points, we know where they’re hanging out and not just like on social media or Instagram… then ask yourself “what are they willing to share?”, and then use those exact words to try to back out a unique value proposition to you and your skillset.

It’s not enough to just ask for the sale – Is your call to action clear? How are you moving your customer from where they don’t want to be, to where they want to be? Is it easy to take the next step, or are they confused? 

So this can relate to lots of different things, but mainly you want to know, “Am I helping my client take the desired action in easily identifiable ways?” 

One thing I learned from one of my teachers when I was in college is when you’re designing your page or any sort of marketing material, you need the eye to jump.

Meaning, if I’m not reading, I need whatever my eye is jumping to, to make a complete sentence related to the problem that I have that I need solving. 

So if you have these tiny headlines or if you have little words and you don’t have graphic elements or images that can also portray a message, then, again, you’ve potentially lost your client. So are they confused, are they lost, and is your map clear enough? Ask yourself that question.

Don’t be afraid to drive to the sale. Like sometimes we make it hard for people to buy from us, just make it easy. Sign up today. Get your product. Claim your offer. Have clear, concise call to actions. Drive the person to the sale.

Because once you make these shifts, you speak to them and help them overcome problems and objections. You create the flow of customer journey before you start, and you’re clear on the outcome of the action you want them to take, then you’re setting yourself up for success.

 

Join my FREE Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/alignedandabundantentrepreneurmovement

Download my FREE Training: https://www.biz-yogi.com/free-training

 

 

 

Increased Income – Yes Please!

Yay For Increased Income!

It wasn’t too long ago when I believed payroll was only for “successful people”. For those who were making “real money”.

Side note: Can you see where none of the above statements even make sense?

These were all illusions I had set up because of comparisons to others who I assumed made so much more money than I, who were living more grandiose and who obviously could afford to pay themselves a salary.

I thought, keep all the money in my business account and pay myself as little as possible JUST IN CASE.

Just in case what? What was I setting myself up for? Failure?

So here let’s all say “Yes Please!” to increased income.

[button link=”https://calendly.com/ariom/deep-dive-bizzy-time” type=”big” newwindow=”yes”] SCHEDULE YOU CALL HERE[/button]

The Reality

Here’s the deal. Now that you and I are professional adults as I like to call it, this is why and how I tripled my salary in just a few short months.

  1. I wanted to settle down and buy a house
  2. I wanted to start investing my money into other things
  3. I asked the “successful people” what they did

Big realization was that I was limiting myself massively on item 1 because no one would lend me money since I earned “so little”. I was also telling the universe that I didn’t need to earn a lot of money because I lived simply. I also wasn’t building up my credit or giving myself cushion to start an IRA, invest or do anything else with my money. It is all about increased income and opening the doors for it to flow in from clients into your business and from your business into your life.

I created an abundance mantra for you:

abundance mantra

The Result

I decided to triple my payroll salary and see what happened. Let me tell you – magic. I realized I was scared in the beginning but once I started the 3x everything fell into place. The fear left because I welcomed more clients into my life and saw more abundance via income to support the pay increase. Also I was able to get a better loan for my home which SAVED me money in the long run and started a chunkier savings account that made money FOR me as well as an IRA for my retirement.

I also felt PROUD of myself for not thinking small and limiting myself. Once I committed to saying – money generates more money I was able to feel really abundant and help my clients from a place of growth vs limits.

The Challenge

Here’s my ask of you- notice how much you pay yourself monthly – is it worth your value? Is is just enough or is it party time in your bank? Do you leave all your money in your business account just in case you need to cover expenses or can you trust yourself and the universe to be bigger and more affluent? Can you commit to 2x your salary or even more? And with this extra income, can you commit to sharing it via a donation (whether big or small) or even crazier, treat yourself to something nice?

Let’s all increase our worth and increase our salaries to show 2020 who’s in charge – the ever expansive universe who wants us to be ever expansive and abundant!

Also this is an invite to jump on a strategy session with me if you want to invite growth in life and biz – SCHEDULE YOUR CALL HERE (usually $297) for $97.

 

[button link=”https://calendly.com/ariom/deep-dive-bizzy-time” type=”big” newwindow=”yes”] SCHEDULE YOU CALL HERE[/button]

Is Yoga Business Different? Integrity and Ethics

Integrity and Business

I’m jumping on here to talk and ask- what’s the deal with business and yoga? In light of recent articles in Elephant Journal (check it out here) regarding Kino, Cody, Alo and all one word named businesses I want to have a dialogue about WHY when it comes to yoga business tends to shift into irregular practices.

15 years. I’ve been in this business first of all as a student, then a teacher and now a mentor and leader. I own a HUGE yoga festival called The Yoga Expo, run an international business consulting company and well delve into all things yoga industry related. In the past weeks, I have seen the beautiful and ugly head of yoga and business rear its head.

“I think you trying to make money off a sacred science is appalling and if you truly understood the teachings the last thing you would be doing is sending out a dumb ass email commercializing a sacred science that was meant to be passed down teacher to students…you need Togo back to school”
I posted this as a copy paste to also highlight his grammar… you all know I am a stickler for spelling. Anyways, that got in my inbox a few days ago. But also this:

“I was on a journey of spirit to unearth those of authentic purpose whose actions spark the divine when I discovered your meaningful Essence. You are doing work you should be very proud of. You are having a profoundly positive effect on people.”

Yoga business is the same as all other businesses by the way, the only difference is who’s behind the business that makes the world of difference.

What’s going on?

Opinions will always create a ripple effect. The opinions in the article referenced above are really interesting because I am a businesswoman. Cody and Alo are businesses. Kino is also a savvy businesswoman. When values and integrity are so deeply ingrained in how you operate your business it’s an interesting play on how kind you are and how much of a stickler for contracts and rules as well. Why do I say this… because I have seen it first hand.

Several times when I operated my business from a place of generosity and kindness, whether it was offering discounts, extra flexible payment plans, I have gotten burnt. People never paid, didn’t show up or decided that it wasn’t in their best interest to continue paying.

What happens here is the ripple effect. And the same thing Cody’s co-founder speaks of. For a customer it is very easy to say I no longer wish to pay. What about the people on the other side? The employees of Cody are affected by 1 decision. My family is affected by 1 decision. Yoga business practices are truly the BEST in the world. As long as us, the leaders continue to make an effort to hold highest levels of integrity – on both sides of the coin.

The Yoga business isn’t different than other businesses. If you develop and establish your value, your non-negotiables from the beginning, guess what… you don’t get burned. I take every client that stops paying, that wants to change agreements to what works for them as a lesson. It makes me more organized, it makes my contracts tighter and payment plans also more on point.

The main point behind this post.

I want to shed light on many sides of the coin. Our society is so easy to point a finger. We take the moral high ground on issues that we really don’t even know anything about. When I read Kino’s first article I was totally like “WTF!” how dare these large companies do whatever they want! Shortly after I caught myself and said, wait, my business is growing and I would like to avoid these types of situations. And then today I read the reply and I also attest to several things he mentioned.

How do I prepare my business so from the beginning there are non-negotiable value systems in place of trust, honor, commitment, fun, exceptional quality and passion?

Is yoga business the anti-business?

Learn about foundations of your business. Set yourself up to always see things as a learning experience will help avoid massive issues in the future. It’s how you operate, how you treat others that will always leave a good mark on your side. I wrote this article on analysis paralysis a few months ago that reminded me of how it was like setting up my business – but guess what – nothing is perfect and things will always come up that make you re-work and re-do and re-word. Nothing is perfect and as long as you are open to the flow, your business will improve daily.

Leave me a note as I’m interested to hear your side and how you operate your yoga business. 

My newsletter and open rates… why do I need to know?

Newsletter hell.

Have you asked yourself this question before? Are you stuck trying to see what cool stuff you send in your newsletter? I know. I have been there. I have been naughty and not sent my newsletter because I had no idea what to send! You know I had a studio for a long time and we had to send weekly newsletters with all the cool stuff going on – arm balance class, workshop, teacher training. BUY! BUY! BUY!

All we wanted to do was sell events and get people interested. Guess what, at some point the newsletter consisted of the same shit every week because we either didn’t have that many events or they were in advance so we needed to send something right?

So annoying.

Yes, this is exactly what it turned into. An annoying task with absolutely no excitement other than maybe making a cool little artwork for the newsletter event. Woohoo. What started happening is that our open rates were low. People weren’t clicking or signing up. People would come to the events, yes of course, but because of the of the interaction at the studio or at the front desk. So few would pre-register making it even more stressful and honestly annoying.

What changed???

I had a vague idea of email marketing a few years back. I knew we needed to collect emails and then send newsletters. That was about it. NOT what I know now. Have you ever said to yourself “If I knew then what I know now…” Well let’s focus on what I know now, vs, what I knew then since it wasn’t that useful.

After taking many courses on marketing and rubbing elbows with some pretty intelligent and successful people, I realized everything I was doing was moving people away from clicking open. Because they were constantly getting yelled at with sign up, events, retreat and nothing else, they had no motivation. No bait as some say.

They were bored of not getting value.

I use this word value like the elephant in the room. It’s huge, it’s sitting there, but we ignore it. Poor elephant. I was scared of giving people FREE information in my newsletters! I just wanted to them sign up for the arm balance workshop, so why would giving them a video about arm balance be beneficial.

The hook.

That arm balance video was my free teaser. Was my lure to get them hooked. VALUE. I offered a video tip on how to get into crow but I didn’t give them a 2 hour long workshop in the email. What it did was spark the interest of the reader to want to learn more, easier and more efficient ways to do arm balances. Do you get it? Yup. This was the magic touch. Tease them with valuable info that they can take with them on their journey. Maybe you are really excited about offering a tantra workshop- well write a really cool article with awesome information about tantra. You aren’t giving away the whole pie. You are only giving them valuable tips to show you are a credible source to make them say, “WOW, that was amazing and I learned so much I want more!!!”

You get it?

Well, this is your time to turn around these email campaigns and get some interaction! Instead of little opens, I get replies from people saying thanks so much, that was exactly what I needed and more! It feels so good to know I can help via one video, audio or blog post.

Try it out!

On your next newsletter try it out and see what happens. Get some catchy titles, get creative, add your voice in the writing so it feels authentic and powerful. And guess what? You don’t always need to sell something!!! So cool right? Give and you might receive, but give anyways. As a yogi hearted business minded human you know it feels right to give from the heart… and even better your clients will feel it too.

Namaste!

 

My first Yoga Studio… the Epic Story

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Yogis Studio Dreams

There comes a point in a yogi’s life where we ask ourselves… what next? The most logical progression is start and open a yoga studio. Of course! Do you want to know how and why this happened? The evolution of it all? In a moment I will share how this all came to be, why the most perfect and imperfect people came into my life during it and how it taught me to shape up or ship out!

 

But first, let me introduce the key players:

  1. The Russian
  2. The Jersey Yogini
  3. The Argentinian
  4. The slumlord

Sounds a bit like a spy drama doesn’t it? Picture the Russian with a mysterious je ne sais quois about him and the Argentinian dancing tango and throwing knives while doing it. Well it’s kinda like that but way way less dramatic!

So about 5 years ago I had coffee with my friend, the Russian and he said – “Hey you want to open a yoga studio with me?”. All this in a thick Russian accent of course. I immediately said “YES!”. You can get an idea of my impulsive nature as I am a gemini, a monkey in my Chinese astrology and Vata/Pitta in my dosha.

Now mind you I had never owned a brick and mortar business. Much less, had never really had a “business” that involved others.  I was a lone wolf in the yogi and freelance world and had never even thought of what owning a business meant. An entrepreneur at heart, but not to this level.

Second, I had no idea the Russian came with a partner. So I jumped head in to a massive investment.  These were my life savings!!! With someone I had maybe met 3-4 times in my life. This turned out to be the best decision ever.

Meet Michelle. The Jersey Yogini with a heart of gold and the hustle of a pizza bagel (as we lovingly call Italian Jews). She is now my soul sister, a lady who works as heard as I do because without her help nothing of this would be a reality today.

 

So the story begins.

After agreeing that this was a great idea, getting the location, starting the build out, jumping for joy after signing our lease we realized we had no more funds, no more energy and no vision. The “oh shit” happened and reality came crashing down. The Russian is a yogi who traveled and disappeared for weeks in caves or with a swami. Michelle and I had been left to our own devices dealing with the unfriendliest and slimiest cigar smoking, name calling landlord in the universe (enter the slumlord). He made our build out process a nightmare from cheating, delaying, lying – well you get the picture. Know that at the end of the day good always wins and we definitely won because of our grit and hard work!

 

Life of a Yoga Studio Owner During Opening

All I can remember is sitting in my car talking to the permits man crying hysterically on WHY we had gotten denied AGAIN and had to now pay another few thousand dollars. To make the long story short, we were in dire straits. I studied architecture for a year in college so I had some idea of something but not to this degree. When you have a small budget you get creative. You hustle and learn to do things on your own quickly. Michelle took to the city and department of building to expedite our permits. I chose flooring, dealt with engineers and architects. A killer team ready to make it happen.

At the end of the day we had an opening day and were going to stick to it. If you are thinking about opening a studio- do your homework and make sure you have the funds and needs to make one from scratch or invest and buy one already made.

In comes the Argentine to save the day. With help from his ninja business skills we made a studio that would sky rocket to success. All of us made a killer team- business brain, yogis on a mission and lots of good will. We finally opened TRIO Studios the day before a 30 person training we had scheduled months before.

 

NOTEWORTHY TIPS

Top 5 Tips to Success with Your Yoga Studio

So you know anything you are trying to build out will take twice as long, and twice as much. Our classes steadily grew because to have a successful studio you need a few things:

  1. REALLY GOOD TEACHERS
  2. A KILLER SCHEDULE
  3. A GREAT TEAM
  4. A BRAND THAT STANDS OUT
  5. A UNIQUE APPROACH

Good teachers make or break a studio. Because the owners always have a bigger pull if you open a studio, give yourself the top and best time slots furthermore always share some of those slots with your best teachers so when you decide to step out of the teaching the studio is still busy.

The schedule should reflect the people who live near you, your niche clientele, your ideal student. If you live near young professionals know that the might want later classes or really early mornings. Study your neighborhood and cater to what they want.

To mange or not to manage is the question that seems like has an easy answer.  I decided I am a better teacher than a manager. Hiring someone else to take care of the smaller things is a great idea and as a result it created space for me to be creative, to see the bigger picture and to create a lifestyle that I wanted. The hiring process is critical because your manager is the face of your studio in addition to the front desk. Whether yogis turned business owners realize it, sale are number 1. Make your team represent you. Create a family of workers that care and want to grow with you.

Branding. One of my favorite topics. First of all you want a killer logo that represents you. Since you want to be top of mind a name that is easy to remember is KEY therefore helping you stand out more. TRIO is in English & Spanish and short and sweet. Don’t confuse people who don’t speak sanskrit. Make the branding something that appeals to your ideal client and stands out from the others. Because branding is so important, check out this free mini video or my complete course which has a whole section on creating your brand.

aerial yoga - trio yoga studio

Finally, a unique approach which in TRIO’s case, is aerial & acroyoga, and over 65 classes a week. We cater to people who want to expand their horizons with yoga and explore different avenues. We want people to be able to come to class whenever so we make the studio available almost all day so that they have easy access. ALSO owning a studio is about real estate management. If the room is empty, you are losing money. Don’t leave money on the table- ever!

With all this being said and done, TRIO has created a community of yoga lovers, people who’s lives change for the better daily. It created a job for Michelle and I who are the main teachers, lead the trainings and yoga retreats. Our studio is probably one of the best in Miami because we provide a level of service and quality unmatched by others and as a result make a big impact on the lives of many. Our vision and dedication teaches us daily on how to be better business owners and yogis. It’s a fine line but at the end of the day it’s worth seeing the smiles on peoples faces.

 

SUCCESS STORY

A legacy in the making.

In conclusion TRIO is a HUGE hit and continues on its way up. Profitable on year 1, top 10 yoga studio in Miami 3 years in a row. Unique in scheduling, class style and the first in Wynwood Arts District. A team that kicks ass and a legacy of quality.

To learn more how to be a yogi entrepreneur, a creator, a proliferator of goodness then check out Bizzy Yogi Online Business Academy. Most of all you will learn all the ins and outs of being a successful business owner, a top of mind yogi entrepreneur and grow your yogi business mind that surpasses what you think was possible.

Take action today and join the tribe of movers and shakers who want to change the world one om at a time so that yoga grows and continues to impact the world daily.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]