Thread: Best Way to Get Paid/Space Rental vs. Being an Employee

After reading the thread on gym salaries, I'm curious to know from other Bhuzzers who teach what they feel is the best way to be paid and if they profit more from space rental or being an employee.

When speaking to managers or directors about teaching at certain kinds facilities, of course as already mentioned in previous threads, they want to pay an hourly rate for a one hour class and I agree that this is not worth it--especially when those places are charging for the class per student. They are getting paid per student but you aren't.

A bellydance buddy of mine feels that taking $15-$20 once per week for teaching 10-20 students who are paying $60 each for the class is worth it because you are building a customer base but I don't agree with this. While I agree that you may be "getting your name out there," $15-$20 a week doesn't replace the gas you've spent to travel there, plus the time and energy you spend putting together choreographies and course materials for the students along with the hour of teaching. Besides, if you later got your own space, how do you take those students with you without creating problems with that facility? Is that ethical? And these facilities often don't want you promoting your business on their property during class time.

If you agree to teach at a facility as an employee, are you able to negotiate the pay or are you subject to having to accept whatever they pay teaching staff? Of all the facilities I have spoken with that employ dance instructors, only one pays the teachers according to how many students that sign up and not by the hour.

For those of you who teach, do you feel it's best to be an employee or rent space?

Does it depend on the facility?

Do you think it's better to do a 70/30 split or rent class space by the hour?

What do you think is too much to rent a space by the hour?

SO many questions! LOL. But all very good ones.
I'll start by saying that WAY back in 1986/7 in Philly good, trained aerobics instructors were getting paid $50 an hour. How is it gyms have managed to get the pay scale DOWN so much? That's crazy, isn't it?
At one place- that does all the advertising and administration I get a 50/50 split. Around here that's good as many places do a 60:40 split (with the majority going to the studio). In these situations if the studio doesn't advertise heavily, I believe it's a rip off.
At another place, I rent studio space ($30/hr) from a ballet studio and do all the advertising/admin on my own. I have a "minimum student per class" requirement so I'm happy, and it works out well.
I've been offered to teach at other places around here. They currently pay between $22 and $25/hr. With the amount of prep work, training etc that does into (quality) teaching as well as the fact that you physically can't teach a 40 hour week- this can't be compared to hourly jobs and really should be priced at a "per service" job. As classes are generally an hour long it still might be put in "hour" terminology though.

I have done all types and here are my thoughts....

Renting a space: This is ok as long as you have a minimum, and you cancel class if you don't get the minimum. It is a lot of time on your end advertising and such, so you need to take that into account when establshing what your minimum would be. I found that there were sessions where I would make a lot of money, and then sessions where I would end up canceling because not enough people signed up. So, it's a lot of work, and possibly not a "steady" gig.

Splitting: I do not like this at all. If I am going to be dependent on students coming for my pay, I want to be able to assess my risk up front and know exactly how much the studio will be getting. So, I would rather pay rental than do a split. Also, if you are splitting, you HAVE to make sure that the studio is holding up their end of the bargain (especially if they are getting a large chunk of the money) - they need to put in work equal to their percentage in advertising. I have found that that often doesn't happen, and I am doing all the advertising and then handing over a large portion of the benefits of that to the studio/gym.

Flat rate: This is my favorite. There is absolutely no stress on my end - I get paid whether one person shows or 10 people. So, it puts the burden on the studio owner to do a ton of advertising, because they will be out of pocket it no one comes. I don't do any advertising for these classes other than have them on my website. Yes, there will be times when your class is FULL and the studio is raking in the dough while you get your flat rate. BUT there will also be times (holidays, bad weather, summer, etc) when one or two people show up and the studio looses money - but you walk away happy. Just be sure you get a fair rate (I get $45-50/hour depending on the studio) and then all you need to worry about is teaching!

I liked to have a mixture of flat rate and percentage classes. Sometimes the flat rate worked out better, sometimes the percentage classes. For a while I had two of each and it was a good mix.

It's very important to set a minimum and maximum class size up front.

Without a minimum, on a percentage class, you'll wind up teaching two students and earning less than minimum wage after you pay your expenses! If it's a flat rate class, the studio/center is losing money and the arrangement can't continue for long, you'll lose your job. I insist on setting up prepaid 6-week sessions. if there aren't enough students, we'll try again in 6 weeks.

I didn't realize how important a maximum was until the health club got 40 people signed up for my class! The room was big enough, but in order to teach effectively, I had to pay an assistant out of MY $50 flat rate. So I wound up earning $40 an hour, and the club was earning $350 an hour!!! I said 'we need to cap this at 20 people and start a second class for the overflow, I can't teach effectively' and the greedy so & so's just blinked at me!

I'm positive I wound up losing a LOT of potentially long-term students when that happened -- students who will never come back because they tried bellydance and decided it wasn't fun.

To add another layer to the discussion, do you think it's better to teach at/use space at dance studios than to use a gym or an otherwise non-dance or non-arts facility?

Have any of you had a better experience working with one than the other or has it been about the same?

this is good stuff as I am taking a two month hiatus to figure out how/if I want to resume teaching.

I do a split per student with a minimum that guarantees me no less than $20/hr for my time. Since most of my classes enroll well beyond that, I tend to average about $50/hr teaching, unless it's a particularly slow session. Students have to pay the entire session fee up front - there are no drop-ins, and they don't get a refund for dropping out unless there's a medical reason (like they broke their leg). Because they pay in advance, I sometimes get paid for students that never actually come to the class; I'd say I have at least one or two of them a session, and it never fails to boggle my mind.

I also always have the facility take care of the enrollment, collecting payment, and advertising the class.

When I was teaching, I did a 50/50 split with the Continuing Education department of a local community college. It worked out really, really well for me. They handled all the administrative stuff--registration, fee collection, etc. They also advertised the class through their brochures and newspaper ads. I designed fliers--which they printed for me--and they gave those out from their office. I also hung them up around town...no one asked me to, but it helped my bottom line. The people I worked with were really great and were willing to let me make decisions that worked for me as far as minimums, maximums, etc. I could see where, with a different set of personalities/different working relationship with the people on the administrative side, it could be a nightmare. I was lucky.

I do both, work for hourly pay for parks and rec and I rent out a studio for a once a week daytime class for this summer. First time I've done the daytime bit and so far its working out.

I'm quite happy with my city pay by the hour setup to be honest. Yes I don't get paid what most of you do, however I also teach other art classes there as well, I have a few of the employee benefits since I'm a year round part-time worker, and the people/work enviroment are fantastic. For me its worth the time I spend verses what I make. I also know they aren't making much if anything in profit off these classes. They charge such a low fee in comparison to other places for our session of 7 to 8 weeks depending on which night the class is, that it pretty much takes their minimum number of students to make up what they pay me. For example the silver smithing class which is a 4 week session has to have a full maximum of 10 students before they see any profit from it after paying my wages. The class runs so long as there are at least 3 people signed up.

For the daytime I'm doing ok right now. Of course we just hit summer tempurtures here so the numbers may drop as the heat goes up, a/c can only do so much when your moving around...lol. Right now it takes 3 students to make the rent each class and I have had 6 to 10 most classes. Add to that I'm helping out the studio I rent from during their lean months and they had jumped in with offering my troupe space to rent when we lost our last rehearsal space for a seriously affordable price. I feel like even if I don't make much for me money wise I am making up for that in other ways that benefit me, my students and my troupe.

Something to consider when your deciding which route is better for you is all the little things, like insurance and advertising for example. Through the one job all of that is their domain I just show up and teach, the studio, not so much. Sometimes its worth taking a lower hourly wage and not have all the little costs and time consumers that come with renting a place. In the end you have to go with what works best for you.

I attempted to teach at my local parks and rec but they wouldn't let me teach there. :-(

Originally Posted by saheli

I attempted to teach at my local parks and rec but they wouldn't let me teach there. :-(

Really?

Usually those places eat this stuff up . . .

Deborah

As to which is the best arrangement:

I've worked for several years for a Parks & Rec that takes a 50/50 split: I don't like the percentage, but my classes are reasonably well-attended and staff is really good to me. My minimum class size guarantees me $25 per "hour." Other places have a more generous split; just 10 percentage points more makes a big difference. At one place there is a 60/40 split (I get the 60) and my favorite one is 70/30 (I get the70). Unfortunately, neither of these locations have very good turn out and I often cancel due to low enrollment.

I've also been an employee of a gym and received a flat $35 per hour class. The class was included in the participants' gym fees, so there was none of this huge discrepancy between what I made and what the gym made if I had a large class. It was drop-in, which I cannot stand (but that's another subject).

I've not rented space, mostly because the studios here are so "booked." Well, at some of them I pretty sure they didn't want that dirty belly dancing sullying their facilities. Per-hour rentals run from $30 to $55 -- it's very expensive, although occasionally it's possible to find one for $25 per hour.

I'm accustomed to the split-thing and it can be reasonably lucrative. Renting could be lucrative if you've got good, consistent attendance.

How's that for a non-answer?

Deborah

As a studio owner, I can tell you that per-hour rentals are expensive because in many locations the majority of adult students want to take classes M-Thu 6 - 9 PM. That's 12 prime-time hours a week in a space that must be paid for 24/7. Many studios will be glad to work with a teacher who comes up with a creative way to draw students during non-prime hours.

Originally Posted by casbahdance

Really?

Usually those places eat this stuff up . . .

Deborah

They said they didn't want "that sort of thing" taught at their facility. I do live in the southern U.S. so perhaps that had something to do with it. I don't know lol.

Originally Posted by saheli

They said they didn't want "that sort of thing" taught at their facility. I do live in the southern U.S. so perhaps that had something to do with it. I don't know lol.

Wow.

I realize there's NO point discussing things any further with them.. but I'd be so tempted to just brightly say "what sort of thing is that?" and listen to them hem and haw?

Originally Posted by Lauren_

Wow.

I realize there's NO point discussing things any further with them.. but I'd be so tempted to just brightly say "what sort of thing is that?" and listen to them hem and haw?

The things that's funny is that when people say things like bellydancers are strippers, whenever you ask them when they've ever seen bellydancers strip, they usually say the following:


















































(Do I hear crickets? lol )

I am a teacher at a place where they take 20% of whatever the total of my class brings in, lets say I make a $115.0 I would total with $82.0 which is not bad for one class that an hour and a half, but I think it does depend on where you teach, far as getting your name out there, that is done by how pleased your students are with you as a teacher and if you perform at events, now some events you can do for free at first just to get known.

I was actually able to get a preschool gig who said they didn't want "that sort of thing" by changing the name and giving them a detailed description of what I would be teaching (in that case, saidi & debke) with pictures of me in costume performing. Now, obviously a cultural class I do for a preschool is going to be different from a raqs class I teach to grown ups, but still- it lets them know that I am a high class performance artist capable of putting on a conservative course!

I really really like having one studio & not having to cart around all my class junk- for me, that's worth paying studio rent even during down times in the year. I have an annual contract for specific times so I don't lose those times to other instructors (per studio policy, if some one takes your time slot when you're not actively teaching/paying for it, they have dibs on that slot!) At this point, you can't get me off my couch for less than $60 an hour, teaching or performing, & that's my discount rate. I hate percentage cut deals- I want to know what I'm going to make, & likewise, I want to know what I will be paying when I hire someone. I have done percentages in the past (90/10 at the local parks & rec, but they didn't advertise much, so it was more like a nice low rent!) and I may be talked into doing them again (Yasaman- I would do it for an 80/20 split too, but that is RARE!), but for now, no. I'm sure I miss a few opportunities like this, but I'm okay with that!

I rent studio space for $15/hour from a ballet studio. They are really sweet people and very easy to work with. I set minimum registration numbers for my classes and I generally end up making about $50/hour. I like having the control over registrations and since studio rent is so cheap around here this works out better for me then trying to get hired to teach at a studio.