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Teachers: Grow Your Yoga Business by Finding Your Yoga Niche (Here’s How!)

Today, more and more people find joy in teaching yoga and it’s becoming increasingly normal to want to make a career out of yoga. But how to find your niche of specific students to cater to? How can you build a successful yoga business?

The thing is, the teachings we receive when we first attend a yoga teacher training rarely include hours on business and project management, how to become self-employed, or how to make an income out of the practice.
 

If I could talk to the me freshly out of yoga teacher training, I’d tell her to start with understanding who her ideal yoga student is in order to successfully establish a yoga niche.

 
So we are faced with one crucial question: How do I make it actually work? Often, when we do decide to dip our toes in the blurry waters of a yoga business, we easily become overwhelmed.

So, where do we begin? What do we focus on? Teaching workshops or creating our own online offerings? A mix of both? And how do we set up a company? What about social media and marketing? And will people even want to buy our stuff? Arghhhh!

If I could talk to the me freshly out of yoga teacher training, I’d tell her to start with understanding who her ideal yoga student is in order to successfully establish a yoga niche.
 
 

Why You Need to Ditch the “I Want to Help Everyone” Mentality In Order to Find Your Yoga Niche

Who is the ideal student for your yoga business? In short, it is the person who will most learn and benefit from what you have to offer them. It is the person who really needs what you have to say to the world, and with whom your teachings will most resonate.

One of the most common responses that come out of our mouths when we hear about this for the first time is something along the lines of, “But I want to help everyone!”

Sure, it’s nice to make a big impact and to know we are providing the tools and help that our fellow yogis need. But before this happens, we must learn to focus our efforts on creating value in one way – not 10. Because when we try to do everything at the same time, we end up burning ourselves out and not helping anyone.
 

The ideal student for your yoga business is the person who will most learn and benefit from what you have to offer.

 
Here’s a practical exercise: Pay attention to the teachers you most love. What is so special about them? Do they talk about philosophy, anatomy, goals, Restorative Yoga, have a blog, a YouTube channel, appear on podcasts and interviews in magazines? Do they do it all at the same time? The short answer is no.

Make a list of your favorite yoga teachers and find a couple of aspects that make them who they are. What is their focus? What’s their yoga niche? It might be so natural to them you might not even have noticed.

So, the next question would be, how do I know who my ideal yoga student is? Before we get there, we need to look inward and understand what we really want to accomplish with our teachings.
 

 
 

How to Find Your Niche? Start by Establishing Your Specific Strengths and Skills

The key here is to not complicate things for yourself. What are you best at? What skills have you acquired throughout your life?

Try to not overthink it. What comes intuitively? What do friends and family say about you?
 

Because when we try to do everything at the same time, we end up burning ourselves out and not helping anyone.

 
This list of strengths and skills will help you work with a foundation you’ve already established throughout your life and build upon that through the yoga teaching lens.

It will help you focus on one thing to offer in the first place, limiting overwhelm and, most importantly, giving you the confidence that you can, indeed, make a career out of your passion.

Need help getting students in the door? Here are 5 Simple Ways Yoga Teachers Can Attract New Students – And Keep Them Coming Back
 
 

Here Are a Few Yoga Niche Ideas to Get You Thinking:

As you’ll see with these examples, since the yoga industry has been growing all over the world, hands are needed on all decks! Yoga is a multidimensional practice and teaching classes isn’t the only way you can be a yoga teacher.
 

1. Teach Festivals and Workshops

If you’re a big ball of energy, you might consider ditching the Yin and Restorative Yoga classes you’ve been teaching. Yoga festivals and Vinyasa-oriented workshops all over the city might be a perfect fit for you.

Yoga Teachers: This is How to Get Booked at a Yoga Festival
 

2. Write About Yoga

If you’re reflective, love to get deep into one specific topic, you might want to focus on the philosophy or mindfulness aspect of the yoga practice. Quiet workshops or writing books and articles on Pranayama could be what you’re meant to do.

Here’s How to Incorporate Yoga Philosophy Into Your Life Every Day
 

3. Join a Yoga Business

If you’re detail-oriented, love to work behind the scenes with eyes on all aspects of a project, you might consider joining a yoga company like a studio, a magazine, or a software company, allowing you to do just that in the industry you most love.

Dreaming of expanding your yoga business even more? Here’s An In-Depth Guide to Opening Your Own Yoga Studio (From a Successful Studio Owner)
 
 

It’s Your Yoga Business, So You Decide Who You Work With and What You Do!

Now, in that list of strengths and skills, it’s time to narrow your focus down. What is most exciting for you? Which skills would you most like to keep strengthening? What makes the most sense to you?
 

Since the yoga industry has been growing all over the world, hands are needed on all decks!

 
Take these strengths and skills, and now it’s time to be a little more specific. What can you apply these skills to? What topics would you like to explore? Who would you most love to help with these skills?

This will determine what your yoga niche is.
 

 
 

Here’s a List of Inspirational Yogis Who Have Created Great Yoga Niches:

These teachers don’t try to do it all, they focus on something very specific in order to make the biggest impact and create communities that can connect around the same topics, challenges, and ways to grow.
 

1. Hypermobile Yogis
Hypermobile Yogis is a project set up by Celest Pereira and Adell Bridges thanks to their interest in applied anatomy and experience as hypermobile yogis. From that, they’re able to easily draw from their lives and passions to bring value to fellow hypermobile yogis.
 

2. Off the Mat, Into the World
Off the Mat, Into the World is a platform that pairs the connection and reflection that yoga allows us to practice to bring change into the world. The three founders put together their activism and yoga passion to create courses and workshops to help communities and yogis to take action.
 

3. Jessamyn Stanley
Jessamyn Stanley speaks up on body image and uses yoga as a way to build self-confidence and change our perception of who yoga is for. She mixed topics she’s most passionate about to create digital content and workshops that touch yogis and encourage their learning and growth.

Watch YouAligned Founder Ashton August Interview Jessamyn Stanley About Yoga and Body Positivity (Video)
 
 

How to Find Your Niche for Your Yoga Business: The Takeaway

In business jargon, your niche is simply a group of people looking for a specific product. For us, yoga teachers, defining what our yoga niche is will often be based on our experience.

With the wonders of the internet, it’s actually become easier to make a career out of yoga a reality. With platforms to create your own courses and classes, social media to connect you with like-minded yogis and meditators alike, and studios popping up on every street corner, the possibilities have become infinite.

So go and build and grow your yoga business with your newfound tools of empowerment: your ability to find the perfect yoga niche!

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As a yoga teacher, you are running your own yoga business! Read these five simple yet effective pro tips to grow your following and retain your client base.
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Ely Bakouche

Ely is a writer and editorial director at Shut Up & Yoga magazine. She’s a yogi, world traveler, life student, and language nerd. She believes in the power of change, and likes to look at it through words and ideas. You can find more of her work on her multilingual platform, EB's Notebook, where she writes about social responsibility, creativity, slow living, traveling, and more. She currently lives in Shanghai, China.

elybakouche.com

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