Thread: Economy Woes Spinoff: How Has Your Business Plan Changed?

OK, so we all know consumer habits are changing: everyone's cutting corners, and conspicuous consumption is no longer chic. In fact, the NY Times even used a picture of Michael Kors' Arabian Nights themed party (yes, with belly dancers) to illustrate the latter point in an article on the demise of the lavish celebrity soiree.

The last time I performed was about 2 months before the stock market bubble burst, so I can only imagine how crazy it must be out there. I'm really curious to hear how everyone's keeping on top of the current economic situation.

What are your biggest concerns, challenges and objectives? Are you focusing more on classes than on parties? Are you shooting to attract a new type of consumer? Are you advertising more aggressively or are you easing up? Has your ad copy changed at all? Have you lowered your prices, began running special promotional discounts/coupons, or added certain "value-added" perks to stay on top of price competition? Most importantly, of everything you've tried, what's working and what's not?

Remember, there are no right or wrong answers. Let's talk.

Most of my revenue comes from classes, and so far they don't seem to have been affected strongly -- a little, but not deeply. I'm having to spend a little more on advertising to cast a wider net to bring in the same number of students.

I'm also trying to diversify my income so I'm not totally dependent on any one thing. I've been really neglecting my performance career, so I'm working on getting back into shape and getting myself out there as a performer. I'd like to add a second regular restaurant show each month and more performances that recur annually or semi-annually.

To that end, I've been pursuing gigs that I used to avoid! Mostly retirement homes. In my area, retirement and nursing homes only have a budget of $40-80/show, and all the local entertainers work with them -- magicians, Elvis impersonators, etc. So I've started working with them, too. The nice thing is these shows happen during non-prime time hours, and they do tend to recur once or twice a year, maybe even more if they love you! And if you can set up two or three on a Tuesday (11am, 1pm, 3pm) you only have to get dressed once and rehearse one set!

I don't have any other source of income at the moment, so I'm trying to diversify even beyond that by getting my stalled writing career back in gear. I've even accepted a few graphics jobs and photo retouching work.

Meanwhile, I'm heavily focused on getting out of debt and reducing my monthly living expenses even further.

I moved to the Bay Area in the spring. As you can imagine, it's belly dance central out here! I've decided to hold off on trying to start teaching right now. For one thing, there are already a lot of teachers in the area. For another, money people used to have to put toward classes is now going toward groceries and rent. It always takes a lot of time and effort to develop a following and get/keep your classes filled. I've decided to put that energy into my own development until the economy stabilizes.

Originally Posted by aazura

I moved to the Bay Area in the spring. As you can imagine, it's belly dance central out here! I've decided to hold off on trying to start teaching right now. For one thing, there are already a lot of teachers in the area. For another, money people used to have to put toward classes is now going toward groceries and rent. It always takes a lot of time and effort to develop a following and get/keep your classes filled. I've decided to put that energy into my own development until the economy stabilizes.

You'll get your following, honey, of that I have no doubt!

I'm with Lauren on having a diversified skizzle set. (Although I never relied on BD as sole form of income to begin with.)

Interesting, and as everyone's already added, I figured a lot of us would be working harder to diversify or change our skizzle set.

I also read somewhere that yoga, Pilates and other mind-body fitness regimes are becoming increasingly popular as people lose their jobs and have more daily stresses to cope with. I wonder if that will send more people to our classes - if anything, that might be a good angle for teachers and studio owners to play up. "Relax and get away from it all," that sort of thing.

I'm kinda with Aazura, at the moment. Backing down a little - and it's not much of a loss for me, because I have a day job. As much as I miss performing, I know that pounding the pavement for gigs could be the ultimate exercise in frustration right now. Dancing just for fun is something I haven't done in a long, long time, and I forgot just how nice it can be.

I was lucky enough to be fairly diversified before the economy woes struck.
I perform full time, but not just belly dance- also folklore and Indian (Bollywood Mujra). I work in a region with a high ethnic population - folklore brings in practically no money right now, but the experience obviously helps the Oriental. I work at several different restaurants and clubs, so have regular income from that- and lots of referrals and exposure.
I also teach Pilates part time. For over 20 years I've taught some sort of fitness or movement- the teaching is day time/or early in the week and the rest of the time is for dance. This steady pay helps me feel more secure.
Satin Worship- your "conspicuous consumption" comment reminds me of an interesting gig this weekend. Booked over 6 months ago- a corporate holiday gig canceled my performance for this past Saturday because they didn't want to appear extravagant considering the difficult economic times. They were still paying me of course, they still had the same budget. They just didn't want to *appear* to be spending that much on a holiday party.

Originally Posted by Azhia

You'll get your following, honey, of that I have no doubt!

Thanks for the vote of encouragement! I'm thinking of going into mini-hibernation for the winter. Only instead of sleeping, I'm going to be training my sequined booty for brighter days ahead!

I still get calls about beginners bellydance class although I asked that paper to stop running the ad in Honolulu. Oh well its free..and when dancers call about classes I refer them to my friend, Malia.

As a consumer, i would be less likely to have extravagant or expensive parties right now. TY and I used to join our 17 or so friends, all from Malaysia except me and this other white guy, and go to everyone's birthday..usually at a nice restaurant in Honolulu, or we'd all bring over a plate and have a feast. With 17 of us it could add up (but WOW the cooking that went on during those parties).

Currently for A'Kai I dont buy a lot of different kinds of silk or inventory, I keep on hand stock lower than usual and only stock fast sellers. Have almost liquidated out a bunch of white silk items that I dont care to dye myself (have phased the item out or don't have time)

Etsy has saved $500/month approx. as opposed to ebay. I had a HUGE ebay bill every month. Etsy is much more affordable. Wholesale accounts continue to thrive and new inquiries are made.

I started marketing, or thinking about it, before moving to Hawaii..knowing that veils are fun to make but I also wanted to make other things. So, advertising on various other venues has proved profitable. I think it all depends on where you pay to advertise. I've run expensive ads on wiserep.com and was not contacted but something like trunkt.org or other sites has been well worth their fee towards getting set up (the most expensive being 400 for one year).

FREE promotions to help advertise new products has been worthwhile.

Getting away from the computer to find other places has been excellent, too. Oh yea life away from the computer.

Overall, the best part has been to reduce Zack's hours at daycare which means less surf and free time for hubby and me right now but they are only young once. He still goes over a few hours a week to socialize with the other kids and learn to kick some ass but he's now with us and that is the BEST part of the business plan change. I'm not as efficient with him around and emails are slower, but the whole day is with him, watching him, being with the dog who is equally as delightful, etc. It's full time but now the hours don't seem like something I'm trying to get more of.

The only possible thing I'd suggest to dancers is that FREE really helps. I know dancing for free is a no no in many situations but if you can dance somewhere and get someone else (and her friends) excited about dancing, you may have more class students. Maybe a fair or very visible charity event?

My restaurant gigs really felt the economy's status: less customers, so often I wouldn't dance. Or only one show instead of two. Some restaurants got into the habit of having dancers call before showing up. However the customers tipped the same, those few dollars / per person probably wasn't much to give up.

However my parties stayed steady, and actually in the past two months I stayed very busy and this month promises to be crazy (and I was worried for a minute).
I think even though the economy is bad, people still want to have parties to celebrate. When they call, I don't notice a big surge of negotiations or even shopping around. Almost everyone that called me, hired me.

I didn't change anything. I advertized about the same, didn't change the ads. Did not change my price, I never gave discounts before and never will, and I also didn't lower it.
I was just hoping that everything will get better and I think it did - for this month, anyways. But December is always good, so we'll see what happens in January.

Here's one thing to think about in your plans around attracting and keeping customers.

Recently, I was interested in taking a workshop from an area dancer. I sent her an email asking for clarity some details in her ad. The response I received had a very irritated tone and she even went as far as to suggest that I would not receive the same materials as other dancers, even though I would had paid for it. Of course, I did not attend (even though it was on a topic that I REALLY wanted to know more about and had previously thought highly of the dancer.)

Customer service means a great deal, especially in hard times. People aren't going to give up their hard earned duckets, especially when they aren't treated well or don't think that they are getting quality.

T

Originally Posted by blksunwyn

Here's one thing to think about in your plans around attracting and keeping customers.

Recently, I was interested in taking a workshop from an area dancer. I sent her an email asking for clarity some details in her ad. The response I received had a very irritated tone and she even went as far as to suggest that I would not receive the same materials as other dancers, even though I would had paid for it. Of course, I did not attend (even though it was on a topic that I REALLY wanted to know more about and had previously thought highly of the dancer.)

Customer service means a great deal, especially in hard times. People aren't going to give up their hard earned duckets, especially when they aren't treated well or don't think that they are getting quality.

T

Why wouldn't you receive the same materials? That seems an odd thing for her to say. Customer service is key in every business and even more so when you're self-employed.

I'm with Lauren... increasing the advertising budget and diversifying.

For the LV Intensive, I'm increasing my advertising budget, adding a festival (to attract more warm bodies), and opening up my a la carte options earlier in the year.

I'm also diversifying my income by focusing and expanding my website business. I also sell Mary Kay here and there as well.

It is important NOT to change the business plan. At least, not too much. Diversity is good, but sticking to a set plan rather than changing it will ALWAYS be to your financial benefit. A good business plan will have already built in strategies for risks - like economic downturn. If you find you're having to drastically change your business plan, it wasn't a good plan to begin with.

I am finding that my studio business is growing. People are not traveling or spending money on "things" - compared to many other things in life, classes are cheap. Word of mouth is the cheapest and best form of advertising, and it (so far) seems to be working for me.

I am increasing my teacher count and expanding my kids programs to reflect demand. In general, I find people are looking for something fun, new and distracting these days and my classes are just what they are looking for. (In addition to BD, I offer African, Djembe, Capoeira, Limbo, etc.) so we're already pretty diverse.

I'm also finding that workshops rather than weekly classes are generating bigger turnout - which means more income in a shorter time period - which every business likes! And rewarding existing students rather than discounting new students, is also something that is working for me. I'm offering discounts to students who were registered in the Fall session, and I'm offering discounts to existing students who bring in new students. I prefer to reward existing customers rather than new customers - its a personal choice, but its working for me so far.

My classes are going pretty strong, but gigs are still virtually non-existent for me. I tried a postcard mail campaign to retirement homes, banquet halls, clubs and party planners which has resulted in zero calls or emails. Luckily, I only counted on gigs for about a quarter of my income in good times, but I'm still feeling the pinch of missing that 25% month after month.

Like Lauren, I'm trying to pick up some extra $$$ here and there doing non-dance stuff. A local dancer just sent me an email to have me build a very basic website for her, and I also have converted DVD footage to video clips for some tech challenged dancers I know. I may also be working one day a week at my friend's quilting shop starting in January.