Rebecca Liu Brennan 0:00
Music. Hello friends. I'm Amanda Barr and I'm Rebecca Lew Brennan, and welcome to Dance principles united the
Amanda Barr 0:08
podcast together. We are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio
Rebecca Liu Brennan 0:14
Join us as we talk everything from marketing, systems, studio culture, motherhood, life and everything in between.
Amanda Barr 0:21
This is the dance principles United
Unknown Speaker 0:23
podcast,
Amanda Barr 0:27
hey friends and welcome to the dance principles United podcast,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 0:30
Beck,
Amanda Barr 0:31
the birthday girl. Lou Brennan, how you doing, babe?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 0:35
I'm super amazing. It is week one back. I did just have my birthday, which was so fun. And week one back at the studio of term four, all the crazy, oh
Amanda Barr 0:46
my gosh, oh my gosh. And you have opened a new premises to try and stop the overflowing a little bit of if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see that BEC is currently spreading her children out across multiple studios. So so good is it going well?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 1:06
It is like it's so much better, obviously, at the old studio and not so crazy. But the logistics of getting teachers across, because they're about six minutes apart, it's going to be fine next year, because we've got the new timetable, and we can logistically do that, but right now, logistically doing that is a little bit crazy, but and
Amanda Barr 1:26
the parking on it, it takes you longer than you expected for them to park, right? Actually,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 1:31
the parking is fine. This is a massive car park, like I'm talking maybe two or 300 car spaces. Yeah, where we are, and it's very busy through the day, but of an afternoon is completely bare because all of those businesses are closed. So that's fine. It's more just the logistics of that. Teacher finishes there at 615 and also starts there at 615 that that doesn't work. So it's that craziness. But other than that, it's everyone loves it. It's so bougie, you'll love it when you see it. I can't wait
Amanda Barr 2:01
to come for a visit. Hey, term four means concert time. So we thought we'd bring you this little series on some of our best concert tips. I love concert time. It's my favorite time of the year. I love term four. I love the adrenaline. I love the excitement of all the of all of the shows and all of that. Do you love it too?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 2:23
I do. I'm I have nine concerts this term, which is a lot, and I feel like there's adrenaline and there's anxiety. No, I'm super excited. It's going to be amazing. It's just there's a lot happening in our Yeah,
Amanda Barr 2:37
and we have different venues as well, which is like, managing different venues is
Rebecca Liu Brennan 2:41
a lot and different themes, almost, yes, like, so we've got, you know, circus acro concert coming up, which normally we do a lot earlier. But because I've got brand new circus acro teachers this year, I wanted to give them that little bit extra time. We've got musical concerts, preschool troop.
Amanda Barr 2:59
There's a lot, absolutely, like I used to run seven, but they'd all be at the same venue and all run pretty much the same way, whereas yours are all very different, kind of, like, styles of shows and different, yeah, stuff,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 3:14
all different weekends and, well,
Amanda Barr 3:19
that's exciting, though,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 3:20
I know.
Amanda Barr 3:21
Well, good thing. We're talking about all our best concert tips. We
Rebecca Liu Brennan 3:24
are absolutely and we're super excited to start with you guys on costuming. Now, I don't know if you've noticed this, Amanda, but it is such a big topic on all the pages at the moment of where are people sourcing costumes? How expensive costumes are how much people are paying for shipping. It's a whole thing, right?
Amanda Barr 3:45
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think it's important to really, you know, make sure you know what you're doing for your costumes. It's so hard because there are only limited suppliers. And as much as we'd like to go, Oh, and this supplier and this supplier and this supplier and this supplier like unfortunately, that's not always the way, but I know like coming to Expo is a great way to find new suppliers, right? BEC, you know what?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 4:10
I know we run Expo, but I have to say Expo has been a game changer for me and my staff with costuming, because we probably found at least five or six suppliers that I had no idea existed. Quite a few of them are actually Australian suppliers, which means your shipping is a lot less, and we've got heaps of costumes from them this year, and they've been amazing to deal with. And I think quite often, as studio owners, we think there's only two or three suppliers, because that's the people that we've used our whole life. So therefore there can't be any more than that, and there's so many more than what we realized. That's what I realized from Expo anyway, yeah,
Amanda Barr 4:50
definitely. And I think it's, you know, it's so great to kind of sometimes spread yourself. I know sometimes in ease. It's easy to order just from. One costume company, but I did like to spread it a little bit as well, especially if you're trying new suppliers and stuff, just so that you can, like, see the quality of them, see how they are, I don't know, spread it out a little bit. Do you do that? Or do you just, kind of, like, just do one or two big companies?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 5:14
No, we totally spread it out. And I think as well, what I loved about Expo, because I don't know about you, Amanda, but if it's a crappy website, I think that the quality of the costume is going to be crappy. And then when I went to Expo and looked at the actual costumes, I was like, Oh no, this is actually really nice. They just don't have great photos on their website. And so I think like that as well has been a game changer of actually seeing things in person and seeing what that quality is like. But yeah, no, we've used heaps of different suppliers this year, so that's probably a couple that I go main to. But yeah, trying out lots of different things, and we've been really, really happy with all of them. Awesome. All right, let's
Amanda Barr 5:59
talk about how we decide the pricing for costumes and the profits for costumes, because that's a really important thing that we've got to decide as a business owner, rather than just plucking this number out of our head, which we have seen done before, it's really important that you really maximizing your profits for your costumes, because you deserve that profit, right? You know, if you were in working in any retail store, they put, you know, at least 100% markup on everything. They double the price of what they pay for it in now, I would love to sit here and say you should be putting 100% markup on your costumes, but that's not the reality. And I'm not going to say that, because no one would actually do it, and it's just, it's just too high, right? However, you should be maximizing your profit the most that you can, right?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 6:53
Yes, and I think we forget how much time and effort goes into costumes, like, you know, choosing the costumes, going back and forth with teachers that takes so long, sometimes, especially if they're a picky teacher that has a certain vision in their head, then sizing the children, then going on and ordering, then finding out jokes. We don't have enough of that size in that costume anyway, so then going back to the like, that is so much time, then getting the costumes, unpacking the costumes, bagging tag, like all of that is time so calculating that for a starter and making sure that you're getting paid for that, if it's you doing it, or if it's like me, I'm lucky enough to have a staff member who does that, but I have to cover that staff member's way silly for me to have that staff member doing it. I'm paying them, but I'm not putting any extra money on the costumes. And then also, you are a business, therefore you should be making a profit off each costume as well. So Nutting all that out is there's a lot of moving parts there, and being educated enough on those moving parts is the key,
Amanda Barr 8:00
absolutely. And I think the education part is the key, and knowing your numbers. So, you know, for me, I would always do a spreadsheet where I would have everything calculated. So for example, if you're ordering something from the States, you know, having it written US dollars, then what the exchange rate is on the day that you purchased it, so change to Australian dollars, what the shipping is, if you're going to get a customs charge for it as well, also then going, okay, so I bought 15 costumes, but I'm only using 12 of them, because three are spares. So when I work out my cost price, I actually need to work it out by, you know, divide it by 12, not by by 15, in that example, because those kids should be paying for the spares, because that's what has to happen, right? So therefore, you then get your cost price, and then deciding what your sale price is, really making sure, you know those numbers, I think so often we're like, oh, and I'll just like, throw on $5 for, you know, shipping, or it'll be this, like, without actually calculating it. So it's really important you have that and then looking at the potential profit, I think, you know, adding that spreadsheet up and going, okay, so if I charge $100 for this costume, my profit will be X amount. What if I charge $110 what will my profit be? And then doing that for every single class, so then you can see your total at the bottom. I think is really, really important.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 9:30
Also remembering, if you're charging $110 $10 of that is GST and not actually yours. I've made that mistake so much I've been like, okay, the costumes $88 I'm going to charge $110 and then I'm making a $22 profit. No, you're making a $12 profit. Because $10 of that is just like, You know what I mean, like knowing that as well is important Absolutely,
Amanda Barr 9:56
hey, we have a great spreadsheet that does all of that. So if you would like. Copy of the spreadsheet, either DM us on Instagram or comment below with the word cost costume. I'm just trying to think what the word is, the word costume, and we'll send you that spreadsheet so that you can use it as well, because it's all laid out with all the, you know, calculations and stuff done. So that will help if you use that word costume, just put it into the DMS and it will come up for you, and that might really, really help. So BEC, when you have parents come to you and say, Hey, I got on the whatever brands website and saw their prices. They're only charging $70 why are you charging me 110 What's your answer?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 10:41
Yep, I love this, and I've had this happen so many times, even on sites where it's only for studio owners, because they're school teachers, and so they also have those logins. And so I literally say to them, I have to pay someone, be it myself or someone else, to choose the costumes, to put those costumes onto Shopify, which is the shop that we use for it, to then order those costumes, to size the children, to then bring those costumes in, to unpack the boxes, to steam the costumes, to pack the costumes into beautiful bags and to put them out to the parents. And I'm a business, and businesses need to make profit off all of those things. And that's literally what I say, I'm not scared to say that, and I've taught my staff to not be scared to say that. And not one parent ever has then said to me, That's disgraceful. They're all like, oh, I never really thought of it in that way. We just truly
Amanda Barr 11:34
say it with kindness, yeah, absolutely without being rude. You say it with kindness, but with an education. Because they don't go to Kmart and go, Hey, I got on Alibaba and saw that you're getting this. Like, it's just, it is what it is, right? Like, that's how much things cost. So I think if you educate the parents around it, that's so important. But I think the point is, is that you're brave. Oh,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 11:59
I didn't used to be, you know, and I used to really think, Oh, what if they, you know, see that, and Lola, and I'd used to try and please everyone. But the thing is, and what I think we all need to realize is people who don't own businesses never think of that stuff. And, you know, I've said this so many times, but I know that Tim, for example, had no idea of the costs of just the small things sometimes inside your business that you know you've got to pay for this or that, or whenever he complains about pricing of anything Amanda, like the price of a coffee, I'm like, Well, they've got to pay for this and that, and the electricity and their waitress. And you know, when they can't see that bigger picture, because they just work for someone else, and they've never had to pay all of those costs. So I think educating them on that is definitely the key, absolutely.
Amanda Barr 12:47
So please make sure you're making good money out of your costumes. You deserve it. You know, in the very least, you know, how many hours do you spend, like, doing all that for costumes? For most of us, it would be 100 plus hours, like, without a doubt, on costuming, and it's important that you are paid for that time. If you think about that, if it's 100 plus hours, you know that's a good three weeks worth of full time work that you should be at least covering, if not more. So please make sure you are doing that. That is our like public service announcement of the data studio owners, right?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 13:21
Absolutely, we want you guys to be making the money you deserve for the incredible hard work that you're doing. Absolutely,
Amanda Barr 13:28
absolutely. So let's talk about we had a question today in one of our paid groups around the presentation of costumes, how you handed out all of that kind of stuff. Do you want to chat on that a bit? BEC, how do you hand them out? At pause,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 13:45
yeah, look, I think this is really important. And I think when you are putting prices up there for costumes, the way that you present, it can make a big difference. We get really nice costume bags that have, you know, the little window with the child's name on it, and look quite bougie. We have a bag, like a little printed thing on the front of it that's just got, like, the exact way their hair should be if they need stockings, which we would include in the costume. You know what their makeup, if you're making them wear makeup, or that they don't need makeup, whatever that might be, just every little detail on that that the parent needs so that they know exactly what their child should look like on the day. We always have a picture of the child in a costume so they know. You know, it's so confusing for parents. It's like I always talk about the stockings on the inside of a leotard, as opposed to on the outside. Like that is so confusing to any parent and just a little picture for them for reference. I think is really, really helpful. I know you used to do this a lot at your studio as well and make it look so pretty and beautiful. It's important, right? Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 14:51
I also think a QR code's really important on that. On the front of that as well is a QR code, you know, to your constant information. For example, or whatever it is, we do that as well as, yeah, having that QR code on the front, do you not do that?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 15:09
I don't think so. And I don't know we wouldn't do it. We wouldn't do it for our troop kids, obviously, and that's the costumes we've handed out so far. But for our preschool, that's a no brainer. I'm not sure if we did or didn't, to be honest, but I am definitely doing it this year. That's the great
Amanda Barr 15:26
idea, absolutely, absolutely. And I wanted to, just to jump on that presentation thing and have a chat about like, we've all, you know, purchased from dodgy Chinese brands, where, you know, the she in packaging comes and it's, it looks gross and the clothes are crushed, or, you know, they're just in that plastic thing. And how much different experience to that is, if you go into a nice store where they have the really nice paper bags, they fold it in tissue paper. It's steamed for you. It's press or even hanging in a suit bag. You know, the feeling we have about those clothes, and even though often sheen probably isn't a good example, but other brands that you buy it from in those plastic bags, you know, quite often the clothes are actually exactly the same, right? But it has to do with the presentation of the clothes that changes our perceived value. So your parents have that exact same thing. So really make sure that you are taking things out of bags, that you are hanging them up, if you can, presenting them nicely. You know, whatever it is, making it look really lovely to present it to parents will show more value in it.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 16:38
Do you know what's interesting? Little side story about that. Amanda, I haven't told you this. So I love chic, and I know you love the shop chic as well. And the chic in Penrith has started putting the clothes up without steaming them, and it makes those clothes look so cheap and nasty that I won't go in there and purchase clothes anymore. Isn't that interesting? So, like, so
Amanda Barr 17:02
interesting, I actually. So I was in chic the other day, and I noticed that something wasn't steamed as well, and I thought others hadn't got around to steaming it.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 17:10
But, like, I wonder, I don't know, but I think that that devalues that brand Absolutely, because I would never, ever try something on that wasn't steamed. And it actually makes me walk out of the shop because I'm like, Oh, this is getting really cheap. This brand now I hate it, but it's not it's just they have presented lately, but see how that like, we put a lot of time into steaming all of the things for our students and making sure that everything has no creases, that it's super immaculate. We fluffed the two two skirts up. Like we put a lot of time and effort into that, for that reason, because if it's steamed and presented beautifully, it looks and feels more expensive. Absolutely,
Amanda Barr 17:50
I love that so much. So so important. So make sure you presenting them. How early before shows do you hand them out? BEC,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 17:59
yeah, like two or three weeks, yeah, okay,
Amanda Barr 18:02
I think that's a decent amount of time. You don't want to do it too late, because if you do it the week before, like, what if the kids away, right? Then that makes it really, really hard. But you also don't want to do it too early either. I love the tip that you gave today around the week that tickets go on sale. I think that's really clever. If you can time things like that. So if your tickets go on sale, you know, sending the cons that the costumes home that week, so everyone's excited about it. You could also include a little, you know, QR code to the ticket website link, or a little reminder that tickets are going out, or whatever that is. I think that's super clever. And
Rebecca Liu Brennan 18:41
because, like, I guarantee that the kid's going to get home and want to try it on, and then parents will say to the grandparents, oh, look how cute they are in their cost and the
Amanda Barr 18:49
photo and yeah, all of that. Or the week before, so that it's ready before concert tickets go on sale or whatever. I think that's a really clever idea. Yay, absolutely. Okay. Last thing we're going to talk about in terms of costumes, to wrap up our costume tips is backstage, how you handle costumes, different ways you do it. You and I do these a little bit differently. So why don't you chat about how you run costumes backstage at pause and how you organize it all in the concert craziness?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 19:20
Yep, for sure. So I'll chat preschool and then main school. So preschool, we only do one costume, and our kids always arrive in their costume with their tap shoes on, because we hate putting the tap shoes on most, and we collect all their other shoes the week before we put them in buckets, and then their buckets are set up, and then as they come off stage, say, Wednesday tap comes off ready to put their Jazz shoes on. They all sit down, they put their Jazz shoes on, and off they go. So that's pretty simple, and we keep it super simple so that we can focus more on the fun of backstage and all of that sort of stuff asking
Amanda Barr 19:59
that. Yeah. So they've given you all their Jazz shoes. Do you put them in Ziploc bags? Like, what do you do? Yep, ziplocs. Put their names on them, and you write them all on and they're just in like a tub with their class name on it, correct?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 20:11
So they have a band on their wrist with their name on it, so that, because if helpers, they don't normally tell them their names, especially two year olds, then we have say their Jazz shoes will be in the ziploc bag. We take their tap shoes off, we put their Jazz shoes on, we put their tap shoes in the Ziploc bag, zip it up and put it back in the box. So, and then they collect their shoes, one for one, correct? And then they collect their shoes the week after. So the shoes they have on last, yep, so the shoes they have on last are the shoes that they go home in. So let's say their last thing is ballet. They go home in their ballet shoes, and then the week after, they collect all of their shoes from the studio. Do
Amanda Barr 20:52
you have a lot of people that don't pick up their shoes? Yes, yes.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 21:01
I can't fathom it. We act we have to text so many of them and say, don't forget to pick your child's shoes up. Yeah,
Amanda Barr 21:07
I'd forget. That would be me, but like, they're in
Rebecca Liu Brennan 21:10
the studio the next week doing dance anyway, that's the part that, anyway.
Amanda Barr 21:15
Okay, talk about main concert. What do you do for that? How's that different? Yep.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 21:20
So this is my troop concert, just to be clear. So with troop, we collect all of our sixes and eights costumes, because they've already had them the whole year the week before, and we set them up in individual classes on racks, and we take them to the concert. So they all wear their first costume to the concert. Everything else is on an individual rack, same thing. So we're very big with our critical paths with this. Every rack would have on the front of it exactly, pretty much what would be on the front of those costumed bags when it went home with parents. So exactly how the costume needs to look, whether a bow needs to be cross pinned in you know,
Amanda Barr 22:00
whether the headpiece sits on, like all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 22:04
So very detailed for those changes. Who are doing it. Then also, we have a list of kids who need to get into the next costume. And let's say it's jazz into musical theater, for example, and they need their Jazz shoes twice. We will have on the front of that rack. These children get into musical theater. Please take their Jazz shoes and put them in the bag in their musical theater. So we would then have a Ziploc bag on the front of their musical theater that they can slot the jazz shoes in, because that is, I think, backstage. The hardest thing is when kids lose shoes. Like, how many times have you been there when the kids are like, I can't find my jazz shoe? And then everyone's running around looking for their Jazz shoe, and then it's too late and they have to go on stage without a jazz shoe because they've lost it. So we're really, really big on that and making sure that all of those things are very clear to the changes, so that they know exactly where things happen and
Amanda Barr 22:54
anyone knows where to find it, right, correct, and that it's super clear that it's not like, oh, the changer decided to put all the shoes this way. And I hate that when, like, when you've had look this used to happen years ago, but some changes were, like, trying to be organized and do their system, but then someone else didn't know their system and all that kind of stuff. So you have to decide the system and tell everyone that's what's how it's running, right?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 23:16
Yes, and not on the day can, I can't stress that enough that people, like put these systems together and then tell people, which, I've made this mistake myself. That's why I can say it. But they tell people the morning of the concert, and then expect them to know, and remember, it's too hard, like you need to go through. We do multiple times. Yeah, we do a zoom with our people, and we really talk it through bit by bit by bit, and
Amanda Barr 23:41
show them and have it there as a physical thing. I think that makes such a difference, right?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 23:46
Absolutely, what's your backstage,
Amanda Barr 23:49
backstage tips? Now, we did higher costumes, so it's a little bit different. However we so we would take every single costume to the concert. So, yeah, like, two trucks worth of costumes to the concert. A lot of costumes. What I would do, though, in terms of organization, is it wasn't with the class group, it was with their, what we would call their fruit group, color group, whatever it is, right? Like, it's a group of kids that are together, and obviously they don't all do the exact same amount, like classes. We'd obviously try to put, you know, kids that do a lot of similar classes together, but it was very much organized like that. Okay, so in this group of 20 kids, 10 of them have jazz first, and that was lined up ready, then three of them then change into the tap, but the other six of them change into hip hop, then this one, then this one, then this one. So very, very organized that way, rather than them going to find different costumes from different rooms, I did that once. That was a bad choice a long time ago. So. Have that all very organized. The same thing with shoes as you do. We actually didn't allow kids to bring in bags into the concert. They had to come in their finale costume ready, because we couldn't. I would love to do first costume, but that didn't work for us. So they would come in their finale costume with their shoes that they were wearing the further finale, which we suggested jazz ballet or hip hop shoes, so that they want to bring the least amount of things in, in a snap lock bag that had their name and their shoe with their other shoes if they needed them, or another pair of tights if they needed them, and a water bottle that was it. So all the shoes would sit into a shoe tub for their group, or the water bottles in a water bottle tub for their group. Same thing, you know, shoes come off, they go straight back in the bag. There's no like shoes on the floor, there's no craziness, there's none of that. It was very, very clear where it had to be. And I think it makes a difference when kids don't have their bags, because that's the problem, right? When there's heaps of kids bags and things are hiding under someone's bag. And you know, all of that, oh,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 26:03
something that we did last year that we've never done before, but my, one of my teachers, came up with it. It was really cool. We had a wash basket for every child with their name on it, and as they Yeah, as they took their costume off, so say, they take their Jazz costume off, they just chuck it in the wash basket, and then they take their wash basket over to the next costume or the next station, and that way, at the end of the night, parents aren't running to different racks trying to find their costumes. Everything's just in their wash basket.
Amanda Barr 26:33
Amazing. Yeah, we did that for our classes. We did they had to bring, like, clear plastic boxes, you know, like clear plastic tubs. That's the only they wouldn't like to back, bring a bag if they had things to bring, it had to come in a clear plastic tub with their name. The same thing, because then I find that it's just all in there, and it's not all spread out everywhere. And I feel like that's easier, same as wash baskets, right?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 26:54
Yeah. And we just, well, we bought the wash baskets for them, and we just chucked their name on it and perfect them all around the room, and yeah, off they went. So it was, it was great. Worked really well.
Amanda Barr 27:04
So, so good. I think, you know, it doesn't actually matter sometimes what the process is, always, as long as it's a very well designed process with no holes and everybody knows what it is. I think that's the biggest key. But also the hope you've loved our chat about costumes today. We love chatting all things concert. This is the first of our concert series, so make sure you jump back next week and give us a follow on Instagram. Tell us if you got any good tips from this. We'd love to hear from you. Right, absolutely.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 27:35
And if you would like to join tribe or SGC, we would love to hear from you. We just did a concert system call in tribe that was super awesome. So let us know if you'd like to join, and we can send you all the info. Thanks, everyone. Thanks. Bye.
Amanda Barr 27:52
We hope you enjoyed this episode of the dance principles United podcast. If you'd love to learn more from us, we have a special offer just for our podcast listeners, go to the link in the show notes right now to get two weeks free in dance principles, United tribe, we would love to see you there. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
