Nathan Barr 0:00
Hello and welcome back to the dance principles United podcast. Last week's episode our 100th Episode was an epic episode. We've had so much great feedback over the week. So many people really enjoying Amanda back back sharing their entire dance studio owner story from the very start of them owning their studios all the way through. Look, we didn't quite get to today because we needed to split it up into two episodes. So today's episode is the second part of that episode. If you haven't already listened to last week's episode episode 100. I highly recommend jumping back and giving it a listen but we hope you enjoy the second part of the story.
Amanda Barr 0:39
Hello, friends I'm Amanda bar.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 0:41
And I'm Rebecca Lew Brennan and welcome to Dance principles united the podcast
Amanda Barr 0:45
together we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio. Join
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 0:50
us as we talk everything from marketing systems studio culture, motherhood, life and everything in between. This is
Amanda Barr 0:57
the dance principles United podcast.
Nathan Barr 1:04
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to this week's Podcast, episode 101. If you missed episode 100 Guys, it was a big celebration. It was a lot. It was like probably one of our best yet if we're honest, we went really went really deep into the dance sensations. And Paul's journey went back to the very start of both Amanda and Beck studio completely throwing open the doors onto how they built their studios into the amazing businesses that they were. So if you've got some time highly recommend jumping back in and listening to Episode 100. Hanif,
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 1:42
I feel like he went back to when we were first dance class.
Nathan Barr 1:47
We went way back
Amanda Barr 1:50
to childhood trauma.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 1:53
It was epic. Anyway, sorry. I digress. But we got to that point. And
Nathan Barr 1:57
we're like, Oh, we've actually been going for a little bit too long. Now, we probably need to cut it off. And then we thought you know what, we're gonna just keep going because we felt it was really valuable. So we thought let's finish it off in Episode 101 of the dance principles United podcast. And let's finish off the pause slash dance sensations journey. How do we think what do we think? Let's do it. Amazing. I did. So where we left it from a dance sensations perspective. And we were just talking about how we'd gone through and we'd open up Shellharbour we put it all on the line, we took
Amanda Barr 2:32
so much money, a huge fuckup.
Nathan Barr 2:36
And yeah, we had our mate run off with $30,000, which put us really close to the edge. But in the end, it all paid off. So we had our brand new studio in Shell harbour in 2015. We were running three studios there three studios in our original location down in Klamath. How do we navigate those first? Those couple of years of running both locations.
Amanda Barr 2:59
Look what we do, like, Well, I'm gonna say, Well, I'm gonna go for well, it was a lot. It was a lot because I knew I had to hustle hard. And we got Shellharbour. As I mentioned up, up and running really quickly. We did really great numbers by the end of our first year. And we were super proud of that. But I also had a newborn and a toddler. And I was running to studios that were both quite big. And I, I like to support my team. I'm all about being there for my team at all times. And so I was going back and forth between their locations every night checking in on them being there for you know, not wanting to leave them before close doing all the things. And look, it was great. We were actually doing really well the business was absolutely thriving that first year we had cashflow problems, and there was a few like teething issues. But then we kind of got into year two of doing that. And year three and it was thriving. I think the biggest thing that happened during that time was we brought on a player Yeah, that was a big thing. Right? It was the first time in our business we've had studio managers Yep, I'm using in inverted commas before but studio managers that you know had grown up in my studio and had done some admin for me and I you know promoted them or or whatever. And they were great at the time but they didn't bring anything new to the table. But
Nathan Barr 4:25
we're using the you're training our systems and everything that we've done it was it was all in house
Amanda Barr 4:30
absolutely and like lovely people and they were great at the time. But we decided to take a you know a big financial risk to be honest and pay what we believed was an eighth layer which is Cara, right? Fix voice she's like she's doing the voice the faces but not the voices today.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 4:47
The story I mean, I didn't know you at the time, but I didn't know all the ins and outs so we
Amanda Barr 4:53
decided to take a big risk and bring on an A player and Cara. Those of you who don't know was this you Do your manager at Dead sensations she's now works for since I dance principles united. And it's an incredible asset to our company, amazing dance principles united, she supports all of our studio growth club members through all of their back end systems, and does incredible things for them. And as we brought her on, and it was a lot of money, it was a big jump on wages from what we'd paid previously to a, you know, studio manager. But, you know, it's that thing, right? Again, risk versus reward, risk versus reward, we brought someone in who I didn't need to give the ideas to, that helped me with the ideas that we, you know, worked in collaboration, she, you know, came in with a different background, not a dance background, even though she did dance as a child, but that was, you know, many years before, just, you know, for a little bit, she didn't come in with a dance background and came in and gave so many new ideas to our business. And that really helped us explode with those two locations.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 5:58
Now, I want to say this to our listeners and Nathe, you'll be so blown away by how awesome I am by saying this. You guys are saying like you bought on this very expensive person. But this would have one been a totally calculated risk. And to you guys had worked your guts out to get the student numbers in and the class placements in for you to be able to afford this person. It's not like you were just like, we're at rock bottom. Let's bring in this magical person. You know, and I think like that can be a bit of a facade in our world, because I've had studio managers as well, as you both know. And I think sometimes people can look from the outside in and be like, yes, that's the answer to all my Yeah, exactly. But it wasn't that right. No,
Nathan Barr 6:38
exactly. I think that's something. I'm glad you brought up the numbers side of it back. But yeah, I think that we see too many people thinking that getting in that studio manager is the solution. And it's not because but sorry, it's not solely the solution. Like manda said, we had worked out absolute guts out and done so much of ourselves. And we knew that by bringing that person in, was going to allow us to step up and do even higher level tasks again, and continue to grow the business to the level that we needed it to be to support these, these two locations and the building costs and everything that was going with it. So we it's one of those things that we were at a point where yes, we've built up the cash flow to be able to do it. And but we're still taking a little bit of a risk. But we are confident that bringing on this amazing new person will help us to get that extra growth even more quickly. It wasn't just it is something we unfortunately see too many studio owners do I think, get oh, well, I'm a bit bored of doing those things. So I'm going to bring somebody on, or I can't be bothered doing those things anymore. So I'm going to bring somebody on without being able to afford it. So I think it's a super important point to make that. Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 7:46
So you brought Cara on. Before that Nathan had actually come full time in business as well. He'd left his other full time job and was working solely at the studio, we'd open a tutoring business as well. We opened a tutoring business. Yeah, that happened to we have an a tutoring business at the same time. And we actually had three staff tutoring for us and had a couple of 100 kids in our tutoring, school tutoring at school tutoring after school tutoring group lessons and stuff. So we're running both of those. But yeah, things were great. And then we sort of talked about combining, but I think maybe let's jump back over to we can jump into pause now. I feel like I've been talking for a little while. And
Nathan Barr 8:25
here's why you want to pass about champagne.
Amanda Barr 8:28
Basically, I'm gonna take over as interview.
Nathan Barr 8:32
Hey, that's my job. So what we're talking about, I think we left the pause journey back where you've just got the loving kick up the ass from your mentor told you that you could basically come here and keep crying every week. Or you could just step up and actually do the ship. And you chose the path of stepping up and doing it. So what were those sort of years, let's say like, yeah, 2015 to sort of 2019 20 ish, what was the growth? How did you invest in your studio and take those steps to build it up? Yeah, it's
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 9:05
interesting, because I think I mentioned like, my studio had always been seniors, we were very top heavy. You know, I'm talking we had, we had like 40 to 45 seniors in our troop. And that was tricky because when we were doing comp, you're only allowed to have 40 or 30 or whatever it was. So we'd actually had reserves in our senior tree but I don't know if you've ever heard of that. But it was yeah, it was crazy. But then I probably had six in my six and other troops. So you know, reversed all that started to work really hard at preschool and just chipped away at it and that's the best way for me to say it to everyone out there is we literally chipped away and just started consecutively marketing preschool every day of the year, getting leads in working on our customer service and I say working on a customer service because it is working on it. You know you've got to make that customer service journey so amazing for people to come in and roll and stay. So I really We started working on that. And we just started to see those results of those preschoolers getting slowly, slowly, because I think people think this happens overnight, and
Nathan Barr 10:08
it totally doesn't go 12 to 300, in two weeks, definitely not.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 10:12
That was years in the making, and slowly, just chipping away, chipping away, chipping away and just starting to see then the follow through of that. And that's the exciting part. It's like you start to see the preschool build, and then you start to see that next age group, the fives, and sixes are getting a little bit bigger now, and then you're starting to see the eights get a little bit bigger. And so that's sort of how that all worked. I guess.
Nathan Barr 10:37
Amazing. I'm gonna throw a question at you, then yes, because this is something we do see with studios, because we work with so many studios that experience epic growth, like you're talking about, they put in the work, they turn up to all the trainings, and they experience epic growth, which comes with so many positives. But one thing that's a slight negative we sometimes see is that there's sometimes little growing pains, sometimes around team sometimes around the OG families and things like that did pause, experienced any of those growing pains with team and all families so much.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 11:08
So I can't even begin to tell you. I think I made a Gosh, it's so it's hard to say whether it was mistakes or whether it was part of the growth. But we definitely started to drop the seniors off because I was so focused on that bottom part, I think there were other factors that came into that, which I know we're going to chat about later. I think people were getting cranky that I was so focused on preschool and not focused on other things on Instagram. And definitely like, we definitely see drop offs. You know, my focus changed as well. I had a little boy in there too. And I think that really changed and I was trying to spend more time with family and less time with my seniors because I was there less at night. So yes, that change definitely had ebbs and flows. Absolutely. No doubt about it. Do I regret any of it? I don't, I don't regret it. Because I think we're in such an insanely strong position now in the business that it was worth it. But yes, we went through difficult times for sure.
Nathan Barr 12:08
Because does in will jump forward. But before we jump it does in 2024 Paul still have incredibly trained amazing seniors. Now, yes, 100%. Does your business now make heaps more money than it was,
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 12:24
ah, I can't even begin to tell you guys how crazy that is. Which is why I'm so passionate about helping other studio owners to grow this business of their dreams. Because it was so detrimental at the time that I was talking to you guys about when I had that epiphany moment that, you know, it was literally do or die like I was going to have to get rid of this year altogether or go into ridiculous amounts of debt and not cope in life. And now Yes, it is exponential. And I'm very grateful for all the things so yes, absolutely. But I think it's that consistency that was key, regardless of whether you're it doesn't matter where you're consistent. It is that consistency that is key and the hard work. That is key. I think I kind of didn't work that hard. I did work hard, but not on the right things. Yes. Like I did work hard on the, you know, like we used to have these epic concepts, like we were talking about today. Yeah, like the concepts that I used to do for pause. And we still have epic things. I'm not saying that. But we used to do these crazy concepts with exactly. props and sets and scripts. And, you know, like, and it was I was all about that and not enough about the business and growing the numbers and also affecting more kids in a positive way. I think that's the key, right.
Nathan Barr 13:42
100%. And I think the end of the day you didn't have I think that's what sometimes we see. Especially in like the studios we work with, with that higher level, those high level students, sometimes when we start working with them, they think, Oh, I'm gonna have to give all that up. No, you don't like you're still going to be able to have
Amanda Barr 14:00
more money. Exactly those things. 100% That's something for me that I really feel like if you are someone who thrives on that creativity and thrives on, you know, putting those incredible productions on and, you know, the sets or the costumes or whatever, by, you know, changing your business to be a more financially viable business model allows you to put more money into that totally. Yeah, absolutely create that amazing create creative vision that you've got going on. Yeah. 100%
Nathan Barr 14:28
Because the we know that the students at the bottom and are so much more profitable than those at the top end. Yeah. So you've got more money to play with and lots of things that you do. Absolutely. All right. So we're back across to the dance sensations journey. You've had a bit of a restaurant, it's okay. We're back around that 2018 mark when we made the absolutely huge decision at the time to close your first baby and combine both of our locations into our The new brand new home in Shellharbour.
Amanda Barr 15:03
Yeah, and it was a really big decision. That was something that took me. You remember, I remember that you guys took me about eight months to do that decision? Well, I
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 15:14
think I was on maybe two or three retreats with you guys, which are probably six months apart, if I remember correctly when we met in person. Yeah. And all three of those retreats, that was your thing to work on at the retreat was like, and he was so torn by the decision. And it was such a big moment for both of you to let go of that, which I didn't really understand enough at the time. But I really get it now, obviously, that I'm such good friends with you both. But I feel like it was such an epic moment for you. Right? It was, you
Amanda Barr 15:42
know, as we talked about before, in the last episode, if you missed that, we spoke about that, you know, my first video was in Cairo. It's a small town, and it's a it's a community.
Nathan Barr 15:53
And we both went to high school where we did all
Amanda Barr 15:57
those things. And, you know, I was known in that and I felt, I felt that connection to those students. We all have that every. everyone that's listening to that podcast understands that connection, totally, that we feel to those kids. So I've been playing with the idea of combining our studios.
Nathan Barr 16:15
purely financial perspective.
Amanda Barr 16:17
Yeah, absolutely. And I want to be really clear with that wording that I just used, combining our studios. Not closing one.
Nathan Barr 16:26
Yes. Sorry, that was my fault earlier. Sorry.
Amanda Barr 16:29
Absolutely. And that was something we played around with. And it took me a year to kind of like, get that wording, right. And it was something it wasn't just done like a snap decision, snap decision. And there was so much that went into that. And I really played around with the messaging to my families, how I was telling them, when I was telling them the wording I was using to tell them, there was so much that went into that. And it did really well for us. But let's start by talking about the numbers. And I feel like this could almost be a podcast in itself, because I know so many other people sort of struggle with the location things and having multiple locations, whether it's a good thing, bad thing, you know, whatever. So as we mentioned, on the last episode, we had this huge Shellharbour building and we weren't even using like, we're
Nathan Barr 17:13
using, like 35% of the square space, maybe Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 17:16
The floor space. And to start with we just couldn't afford to renovate the rest
Nathan Barr 17:19
that we put so yeah, when we started with three rent, like very big studio 130 square metre
Amanda Barr 17:26
studio. Yeah, absolutely. And there was three of those. And a reception and you know, all of those things as well. But we basically just like boarded up the rest of it, because we just couldn't afford to renovate it had a commercial kitchen that you had to be pulled out and you had to you know, do all these things. We just kind of like shut the doors, lock the doors on it and just left it. And it was all just sitting there. So we really looked at the numbers, and we looked at what you know, renovating that new studio and making it bougie AF was which as you saw my studio when we first opened it, it was
Nathan Barr 18:02
Yeah, we went on. Okay, as we do 100%
Amanda Barr 18:05
I think you have to Yeah, and it was a beautiful studio space with six really beautiful studios and incredible reception offices, all the things are first of all town, it was a very bougie I don't even know if it's even just a small town, right? It's
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 18:21
pretty far out, like, amazing.
Amanda Barr 18:24
You know, all the furniture that was custom done on point like it was beautiful.
Nathan Barr 18:29
I'm sorry, I'll just jump in. You said like we looked at the numbers. And when we look at the data,
Amanda Barr 18:32
the numbers can be omitted. For those that don't know, we are in Bali at the moment. At a seminar today, we've had four days learning, and we're recording this podcast tonight and probably getting a bit hangry as we're sorry for cutting you down there. No. Anyway, so we looked at you know, we had this great space that we knew we had our potential and we had three studios in Chi AMA and we're like, hey, we could put many more than three. But let's start with three more at Shellharbour location and combine locations. Yep, bring all our people up. But we were so clear on the numbers. We sat there and looked at how many of the kids and I can't remember exactly what our renovation costs were but it was about 200 grand or something similar to that. We're like, Okay, if we spent 200 grand on the renovations just to do that second kind of half of of that. We stopped paying our rent in Chi AMA, how many kids do we still need to bring across to be at the exact same amount. And we looked at it, we played with it. And we played with it really hard and we knew the exact percentage of children we needed to bring across from climate to Shellharbour to make the numbers work and when I mean exact
Nathan Barr 19:50
so this is where this is where I can jump in and give you more context. Like I literally guys pulled every single one of our students out exactly how much they were paying this last year. I went in and I ran. Like, I'm a bit of a math nerd, obviously. But I built spreadsheet models now I'm looking at exactly what percentage of students we needed to retain from Shellharbour. And what percentage of students we needed to retain from karma had all these tables going left, right and centre. So we like literally knew highlighter
Amanda Barr 20:19
kids. And when there are yes, there are maybe there are no looked at their address looks, how far it was for them to drive looked how committed they were to it. Okay, this is scenario number one. Now scenario number two, I know that kid, let's change them from a maybe to a no, let's do that we actually sat there, we knew the numbers, we ended up only needing about, I think it was about 55% to come across. And it did make the drive for some people up to about half an hour. So it was a decent sized drive for them to come across. We ended up taking like 89% of the kids. However, it was, if I say so myself done very well and very planned. It wasn't just something we decided spur of the moment, we had planned the exact way we were going to announce it, the wording we were going to use I mentioned before, how we're going to make it exciting how we're going to entice them up, what new things we were gonna offer them, we actually even the year before sorted, like slowly started with a few bits and pieces to try and get them to drive up there
Nathan Barr 21:19
just happened to have those troop rehearsals up at Shell harbour with everybody
Amanda Barr 21:24
and doing bits and pieces like that on purpose. And also by making it super exciting by like, revealing, you know, we spent the money getting 3d, you know, CAD drawings, whatever they're called, even though we didn't really need them, but to show people what how incredible this place was going to be and why they needed to come. And when we made that decision. That was where our studio really took off, because I could focus on one place. And yeah, we kind of went from strength to strength there, which was incredible and such a good financial decision for us. Yeah,
Nathan Barr 21:53
absolutely. Because yeah, maybe like you said, maybe it's a whole nother podcast, maybe leave us some feedback in the comments here. If you'd like another podcast about the whole two locations, one location seems because there was a lot to it. Staying on top of it. As the CEO of a dance studio, as you guys all know, is a tough job and so much of it is connected to you. So yeah, trying to split yourself to ways does does get difficult. For sure. Sorry, I felt like I cut you off there what we
Amanda Barr 22:22
absolutely loved. And that was really when our studio started to grow. After we did that 2018 really grew from there. Things were doing so so well until bumper bow well, not until bah bah bah. But let's talk about 2020 2020 2020
Nathan Barr 22:40
As we all know, was the year that changed the world in so so many ways. But for us, it allowed us your interviewing? No, it was giving Okay, sorry.
Okay, so yes, 2020 a huge year for look, we don't even need to tell everybody why it was a huge year, right? But allowed us to start many new adventures, but we'll circle back to that in a minute. Back. Tell us about how paws did all things. COVID in 2020. How did you guys attack it and approach it?
Amanda Barr 23:32
Hey, can I ask beforehand? Yeah, where were you at before? COVID? Like, it was probably almost your like peak before your peak now. Right? It was the first big peak totally before you kind of had a drop and then peaks again. Obviously. Yes. You know, COVID did to us, like Where were you before? Like, you know, because we haven't really gone. Okay, where were you at?
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 23:50
Yeah, I don't even know if you guys know this. So we were at a point before COVID. And literally just before so 2019, the end of the year where I was like, I think I need more space because we were drowning in the space we were in and really drowning, especially in our afternoon classes. We only had four studios. And I could see that the numbers in those years. Were getting crazy. And so next door to us, was actually a gym, and the gym, left there and relocated. And so that premises was up for rent. I remember that. Yeah. And so I think it was January or February. When did you go to America? Amanda it was when you? Right? Okay, so it was I think it was February just before Amanda went to America. And I had a different business mentor at the time and he was like, 100% you should go all in on this. You know, you need this space. This is something you should do. And I had a friend at the time who said to me COVID thing and I was like Is it? Yeah, and he was like COVID is 100% of thing you need to think about this. You need to start getting your team ready. The COVID I'm telling you, this is a problem. And so I decided not to go all in on that thank God extra rent in that premises because it was what a month later that we would have, you know, been paying that extra rent
Amanda Barr 25:15
but speaking to on the phone whilst I was in America, yeah, this like, what? Like, we went into lockdown or something. Yeah.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 25:23
And like, I think because Amanda and I both while she was in America, and she was seeing it happening, I had this friend saying this is going to happen, I think because we were both on the forefront of that it made our lives a lot easier through COVID. Definitely. But my business was 100% at the best point, if it ever ever been numbers, or I think we'd probably be around where we are now. So you know, about 600 Kids, we probably hitting the 250 mark in preschoolers. And for for studios, 600 kids.
Nathan Barr 25:59
Class placements,
Amanda Barr 26:00
the average as well.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 26:01
Oh, 100%. Yeah. So and also, like one of our studios is very small. So even fitting 12 kids in that studio is you know what I mean? So there was the it was epic there of an afternoon like it was friggin crazy. So I think, yes, we were at our peak financially and kids wise and all of the things. And I'm so grateful that we were on the forefront of that, knowing that that was going to happen. But obviously it was huge for everyone. And people didn't see it coming, which was horrendous. Yeah,
Nathan Barr 26:33
absolutely. Do you remember and like similar for us, really, the fact that we've had the full year 2019 was our first full year of our combined locations certainly
Amanda Barr 26:41
smashing out we're doing so well financially. You know, really the first time we would hit a seven figure revenue a few years before that, but it was the first time we're really seeing the profit come from those seven figures as
Nathan Barr 26:55
well, because of the investments in the renovation. Yeah, sorts of thing because it sort
Amanda Barr 26:59
of paid off some of those but combined out rents, and we were making really great money, which was awesome, which was so so exciting. And then as we sort of mentioned, I was in America. It just so happened that I was there. Late February, early March, yeah, late February, early March. And, you know, COVID wasn't a thing in Australia. I remember my dad said to me, make sure you sanitise your hands on the off for God's sake, dad, like, What are you talking about you being so over the top when I left. But whilst I was in America, only for about 10 days, towards the end of that 10 days, like shit was getting getting real. And it wasn't at home, but it was getting super real in LA. And it was interesting. We had a couple of friends in the States as well, who were like, You need to start prepping for this. And it was a really interesting moment. Because back in I knees and a couple of other friends. Michelle Hopper Doyle, Casey, there was a couple of us. We started jumping on a few calls, like, hey, what if this is a thing? Yeah. What if this is a thing and Cara? We talked about Kira before, whose was my incredible studio manager. And she's a she's a prepper. Right? She's an absolute prepper. So she started like writing emails, setting up landing pages, getting some things ready. Because she's like, what if we were going going to have to go online? I'm like, No, that'll never happen. She's the one there's classes. And she's like, let's just let's just write an email, just in case
Nathan Barr 28:31
a few emails. Let's start making landing page.
Amanda Barr 28:34
Let's play around with it. And I'm like, No, that's a waste of time. She's like, No, I'm gonna get this happening. And so we kind of all played around. And we had quite a few like, late night zoom calls where there was a few of us in the dead space. And we're all kind of like,
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 28:48
I don't know, if it was zoom. I feel like it was Facebook Messenger. I feel like zoom.
Amanda Barr 28:53
Probably wasn't zoom. No, but it was definitely it was a video call of something. Yeah. And
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 28:56
I had a similar situation where I was like, okay, Zoom needs to now be a thing. And I think my studio manager at the time was pretty on top of that. And we were like researching zoom, finding out all the things about it, finding out how it all worked. So similar to you in your situation, I guess you guys were looking at emails and blah, blah, blah, we were looking at zoom and how we can do those online classes and how we can make it all work. I think we both did it quite differently over that time, though. Am I right in saying that?
Amanda Barr 29:26
In some ways? Yes. I think we were both being proactive on it. I think that was the, you know, we, the week before the lockdown happened, went, Hey, let's do an online class. Let's just try it and tested a whole heap of things tested all our tech got all of our team in our staff in and they were like, We are not doing an online class and like yeah, we're just gonna do it for fun. Let's just see what happens. Let's do a junior workshop and a senior workshop just for fun. And we like prep. I think it was almost like 10 days before, which was like, you know, 10 days before doesn't sound like a lot, but it was
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 30:06
it was God. Yeah, everybody
Nathan Barr 30:07
was in denial, everyone was
Amanda Barr 30:09
still in denial that it was going to happen. And with that, let's just practice. Worst case, we have fun for an hour. And we like, let's just practice we will practising our tech, we were practising all these things, which was, you know, it was obviously a very interesting time. And I like, tell me like, What did you end up doing over COVID? I, to be honest, can't even remember because it's all such a blur.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 30:32
I do. I remember because I feel like I was quite controversial Surprise, surprise, of how I did things and got a lot of flack for it, but not from my parents, which is industry. It's really from more from the dance community as a whole. But we didn't change our prices at all. And we did every single class online and had, I swear, we did the same I do, okay, and had every single studio operating as if the kids were there, we didn't take our kids, our teachers into the studio they taught from home. But every class as if we had our normal for studios, and it literally had pink room, blue, red room, all the things log into this. Yep. And they logged in. And I think I'm pretty sure the numbers are clear that we sustained 85% of our students. And the crazy part about that was a lot of our students were preschoolers. And even with our preschoolers, they still sustained. But we also did a lot of extra things, which I know you did. So we did you know, weekend, finally, this craft blah, blah, blah, I call up my, my staff went above and beyond, I have to say I was so proud of them every day through that. But man, we worked our guts out. And like I'm talking like we did cooking classes and craft glasses and disco for the kids. And but because we gave so much extra value. I feel like parents were so appreciative to us. And you know, kids were bored at home. And we were making kids not bored at home and kids were not exercising. We were getting kids to exercise. And I think that was the key. Absolutely. And we were educating parents on that as well. We weren't just putting the kids online. And that was it. The kids are online and see you later, we were talking to our parents all the time and going Wow, check out what they just did online. And look how amazing this is. And we've got a free dance party. And we've got these and consistently reaching out and connecting with their parents. The other thing we did Sorry, I'm talking so much was we did a free fitness class for all of our parents every single morning, I came to them. That was a game changer too, because a lot of our parents felt isolated. I think a lot of our parents felt like, they weren't fit at the time. They couldn't do that. And the kids were allowed to come to the fitness class as well. But I think that connected our lot of a lot of our parents with our community at the time and felt like they weren't so alone. Absolutely. And I felt that too, because I was a single mom at the time with two kids. And I was the loneliest I've ever been in my whole life. Because, like, I know, you guys in couples, like you at least had each other. Like when you're a single mom, you literally I didn't have my parents, I didn't have any adult no adult like I did. Obviously you can call a person I get that. It's not the same as being in the room with someone. And when you're in that for like 10 to 12 weeks or whatever it was. It was hectic. So yeah, absolutely.
Amanda Barr 33:23
And look during COVID I was gonna say, because we did work on this strategy together. It's just all a bit of a blur. Yes, we
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 33:29
did. You know, we
Amanda Barr 33:31
did the same. We actually, we actually announced that we were going online.
Nathan Barr 33:36
Half an hour after old scomo Did his announcement. Yeah,
Amanda Barr 33:39
we'd already decided with our staff before I even announced that we had a staff meeting and when we're going online, no matter what, we're going to line straight away. This is what's happening. That was a Sunday night. We're like we're going online tomorrow.
Nathan Barr 33:51
I think he made the announcement at like 830 on the Sunday night at 9pm. Before the lockdown had started officially. I had driven into the studio, I've got a mate we were laying Internet will lay
Amanda Barr 34:04
down the hallway to parents. We've done a live we've done all the things because I think that was a thing that we were
Nathan Barr 34:10
fast. Yeah, we were slightly different to you. We still got our staff to come into the studio because they are allowed to to come into work. And I would I just prefer them to have the solid internet that was in the studio because I didn't want any of those issues. Yes, I
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 34:23
think we had separate locations. I think your location was a bit more rural than mine. If I remember correctly. I'm pretty sure my staff were not allowed it
Amanda Barr 34:30
anyway. Yeah. But yeah, we did the same thing. We charged parents the exact same price. They did their exact same timetable with their same teacher in their same studio. By the end of that lockdown, you know, we'd only lost about 15% Yeah, so which actually meant what happened financially we're ahead because we all got the government incentives and things so meant financially. We were actually ahead.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 34:58
Can I just say with the government, people Training though, if you didn't get that, it's because we had employees at our studios and and I had a full time employee a lot of full time employees. So today and I think if you're an already paid, I've always paid right and paid the correct and if you're unsure about that, Nathan, I did a great podcast on it. But like, just remember that anyway,
Nathan Barr 35:18
I think both that is the and like ask getting the building but are examples of when you sometimes take risks and make financial commitments, then sometimes you do get the rewards for that, like for us, we took the huge financial risk of combining into one location. That was a big risk at the time. If we still had our renting camera at the time of COVID we would have really, really struggled. But it just so happened that whoever whichever whichever thing that you that you look to to was smiling favourably honest for that, around that. And like Beck said, because that we had always paid staff, as employees paid super tax the whole way all the way through, which is why the both businesses qualified for those things. Well, I
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 36:06
hadn't always done that. But I'd learned my lesson with it.
Amanda Barr 36:10
Had been for a while. And you know, we all went through COVID We've all been there. We don't need to, you know tell you we reopened and finished the year back on about 95%. When we reopened in June from memory, we couldn't run a concert. Because of our our venues. We're still not able to run a concert we took a huge risk and ran a circus tent concert deal.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 36:34
Oh yes. I remember
Nathan Barr 36:35
that. That was one of the best things we've ever done. Nobody killed me. But that was epic.
Amanda Barr 36:40
It was incredible. We did that for our concert, which was amazing. Obviously, we're in New South Wales for those people listening because I know Melbourne had a different set of circumstances. Victorians, I'm sorry. But that was awesome. But we're pretty much back to where we were at. I think you were the same right? Going into 2021. We're like, Yeah, cool. We're back to where we were pretty much.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 36:59
Yeah, you felt like it was all fine.
Amanda Barr 37:03
We've done this. That was hard. But we're pretty much back, we were probably down a tiny bit from memory. I think we're down about 8%, which wasn't a lot like it was a tiny bit. Yep, totally.
Nathan Barr 37:11
I think in both of those cases. And that was something that we've talked about a lot this week. I feel like the reason that both of our studios did so well. And it's something that we translate into what we do at dance principles yard now is that we took action quickly and decisively. And we acted on it. And it's not always right. No, exactly. But sometimes get it wrong. But in most scenarios, when you do those things, you get it right, and you get rewarded for
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 37:37
it. Yeah. And I'm gonna be controversial as I always am. Guys, as you know, but I feel like as well, we didn't take on the victim mentality of oh my god, I lifesaver. And I think that's the thing with get shit done. It is. But it's a thing with people in business in general, that needs to be. Okay, we have to pivot like, who knows what's going to happen in the next 12 months, two years, three years in business, things will change. You know, when Amanda I listened to mark Boris, who said this, things are going to consistently change in business. It's a people who pivot with the change. You can't just stick him. It's like people who stick their feet in the mud and like social media doesn't work. It's like, you know, these things are changing. Your business has to change with it. The businesses that consistently grow and do all the things change with the times and COVID was a time Yeah. And there's going to be another time that's going to come up and we all have to work with that time. We have to pivot you can't just stay where you are. That is the worst thing you can do. And you have to work hard to stay with it. We absolutely got I think all of us can say we've really worked harder through COVID than we did it and he
Amanda Barr 38:46
did. Absolutely. Look 2021 lockdown happened. You know, that was harder for those people in New South Wales. It was harder because it was the second time around just like, Victoria, it got harder each time.
Nathan Barr 38:57
Absolutely. Because couple was struggling more. Yeah. And
Amanda Barr 39:01
you know, second time like yeah, that was fun the first time but now it's not not fun. But you know what I mean? It was it was a moment. So you know, we we dropped during the second lockdown. I think you did too. But we were very lucky that we built it straight back up. You know, we didn't have as many option. We had not many. We didn't do an opt in just specifically we had more drops, but they all came straight back. So it wasn't such an issue. Yeah,
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 39:24
I didn't have the experience. But I don't know you guys like didn't do the whole online online classes. Yeah. You didn't do it as hectic that time. But I did. So and again, like maybe that was a time that I'm thinking about so
Amanda Barr 39:37
because we were in Rachel, just to be super clear. We only had we sat right on the border to our studio was in lockdown, but half of our clients were not actually in lockdown. Yeah, sorry. I like where we lived. We weren't in lockdown. And half of our clients weren't so it was very hard limbo. Like it was this weird Limbo land because they were still at school. And it was just up the road from us. So we had this like It was a different situation from because we were like you couldn't say to people that weren't locked down, hey, you're not locked down. But you've got to act like you are in the afternoon for dance that wasn't Yes,
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 40:09
I remember until you struggle with that. But I actually just did. I rinsed and repeated, we did. And we had total lockdown in our town. So we just rinsed and repeated did the exact same thing. We did lose less, I think we were at 76 or 77%. But it wasn't 85. Like it was the first time. But we just kept those classes going and financially, you know, got through it. Yeah.
Nathan Barr 40:35
And again, it was an example of for us doing that change. And you'd going back to what you did, because we've been areas, we had to do what we had to do, but we also just made that quick. We analyse, we saw what was happening, we're like, we sort of felt the room a bit. And we're like, best thing to do. I don't we can't do it this time. Our parents won't support it. Yeah.
Amanda Barr 40:53
The numbers, we knew how, what percentage of our clients were locked down and what weren't, that was the hard thing. 100% And we looked at, like the higher end one or which ones are the higher end, clients were locked down, which like there was a lot going
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 41:05
on, you know, which was a really interesting thing for me through COVID was how many seniors I lost? Yes. And I think that was a real game changer. Well, yeah, a lot of people have said that. Definitely. But for me like it was a real, a real real thing. And it's taken a long time to build that back up. I feel because they just the little ones you could keep engaged online, but the seniors were like, Nah, I'm out. Yeah, I'm done with it.
Nathan Barr 41:32
It was harder on them. Obviously, a lot more.
Amanda Barr 41:35
wasn't right for them mental health and all those things. Yeah. Well, if they're at that age, and all of those things. So should we talk about where we are now? Sure. Well,
Nathan Barr 41:45
look out where are where we are now could be a completely different story.
Amanda Barr 41:50
Let's go with pause. Yeah, sure. Where are you at? Now? Tell us especially
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 41:57
Yes, like the biggest numbers we've ever had definitely the biggest class placements. And I think it's important for our listeners out there to understand I truly believe that class placements are different to numbers. And you know, you can have two student numbers they are because you can have 600 kids in your studio and 600 class placements or 100 class placements, right. Or you can have 400 kids in your studio and 2000 class placements, which is so epic. So I think it's the biggest class placements and student numbers that we've ever really had.
Nathan Barr 42:27
And there are some people out there that still aren't quite sure what when we talk about class placements, right. So if back, you're enrolled, and you're doing jazz, tap, and ballet, you're doing three classes. And manda is just enrolled in hip hop and jazz. So between the two of you, to students to students, you're doing five class placements. Correct.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 42:46
And look, I didn't know that when I first started out. So there's no judgement here. And I didn't know that for probably the first 12 years of owning my school. So important number to know it is very important to know. And if you can ask your classmates placements, you can up your profit, huge anyway. So we are at the biggest point that we've ever been by far the cat until is kicking us out of our building as we speak, because our building is too small for us. And the parking is a nightmare. And I totally get it. So we are beautiful partner, Tim and I are about to invest a massive amount of money to relocate pause studios to a new building so that we have six, maybe seven studios, we're building it as we speak exciting, but scary at the same time. And yeah, that's where we think it'll be 250,000 to 300,000 Build, which we know is an investment in the future of the business as we rapidly so so
Amanda Barr 43:43
impressive. Absolutely.
Nathan Barr 43:44
It was Dan sensations.
Amanda Barr 43:47
Well, as we've done another podcast on we actually sold our studio last year, we sold it at its highest peak, which was or just under 800 students doing a lot of class placements not as high as your average or your average at the moments what like seven point something was like, Yeah,
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 44:08
I think what did I say the other day? And it was like 7.6 from kindergarten up as well. Oh, no. Yeah, it was from kids. So we do swap our class placements out from preschool. We do preschool class paces, which I think is 2.2 or something like that. So we do them separate to everyone else, but I don't think it was seven. I think it was like 5.8 or something like that, Amanda, maybe I'm wrong. But like I feel like it's been a lot of champagne today. I'll check it but I think the point is our class placements, even 5.8 is an extraordinarily high suit. So we're trying very hard in my business and you know, to get kids to do multiple classes and to be there more and I think that profit then is huge.
Nathan Barr 44:56
Class placements is the biggest driver of profit guys. because it costs a lot more money to bring a new student into your studio than it does to sell a current student, an extra one to two classes. Yes,
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 45:11
totally. So yes, our class page placements are the best I've ever been. I'm proud of my team for achieving that. That could be a whole thing, as well as how did we achieve such crazy class placements within the school could be a whole podcast, we've
Amanda Barr 45:24
been both super proud of our studios and what we've achieved, you know, we both have done well financially from it, but not as well financially. Because we know that's not everything to everyone. We've also been able to, you know, impact so many students lives, so many heads through 20 years, we've both done 20 years plus business. And we've been able to impact that and employ so many staff to give them, you know, a start in their dance journey. Or perhaps they're working careers before they move on to other things. And we've been so so proud of that. And that's something that we're so passionate about teaching others in dance principles united as well.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 46:05
Yeah. So I think that's the key. Like, we've both had very different journeys, as you guys have probably heard from the last two podcasts. But at the end of the day, our passion lies in wanting kids wanting shear owners to live the life of their dreams, because what that looks like it whatever it looks like, but we know how passionate they are. And whilst we come from very different upbringings in different places. We want all of you out there to smash it.
Amanda Barr 46:34
Absolutely, absolutely. And that's what we're so so passionate about. Thank you so much for listening to our like US drone on I think this is another way to long podcast
Nathan Barr 46:42
for a while, but but I'm sure the audience is enjoying and I'm gonna pretend
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 46:48
tell your life story of two people in two hours is
Amanda Barr 46:52
really exponential, Dave. So I'm so sorry that you're had to do that. I don't know, if you enjoyed it. You liked it, let us know. We'd love to know whether if there was anything that you were like, Hey, I missed that. Tell me more about that bit because, like touch on a few things. And yeah, you know, we'd love to hear from you guys about where you'd like to hear this podcast go. You know, we've just reached 100 episodes. And we'd love some ideas. So if you heard something that we mentioned today in today's podcasts or last week's podcast, and you're like, oh my god, can you just tell me a bit more about that? You didn't really explain that properly, please let us know because we'd love to do that content for you. Yep, totally agree.
Nathan Barr 47:27
Absolutely. Well, thanks so much for joining us everybody. would love for you to leave a comment or review like the podcast because if you like it, then it helps us to reach more people and impact more lives.
Rebecca Liu-Brennan 47:43
Thanks, friends. Night
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
