I've been teaching since 2011 and I think there are 10 essential skills of teaching well.

This is not something I made-up, but it's something I've observed from myself and teachers that I look up to and what I've seen work for other teachers.

Now that I've LED teacher training since 2019, I've seen what really works for people and what doesn't work, and I've distilled it all into these 10 essential things that I share at the free workshop.

Become your own yoga teacher.

Quiet Mind at Yoga Slash Workshop is where you can check that out and learn those 10 essential skills.

One of them is the business of yoga.

So I was very happy to get this message that came in from You Screen.

You Screen is probably the platform that a lot of yoga teachers use for their memberships.

If you've been in a yoga membership, they are likely on you Screen.

There are some similar platforms, maybe they're on another one, but You Screen is very common and very good.

I've used it myself.

I do happen to use a different one myself just because I've been on that one for so long that I built everything there.

But You Screen is awesome.

And if you are eventually wanting to build a yoga membership, you might do it there.

But even if you don't want to do an online membership and you just want to learn more about the business of yoga and the marketing, Daniel Cosmola is an amazing resource.

So we had a really good interview where we talked about things like what really stops yoga teachers from moving online like this kind of fears, insecurities, the doubts that come up, the fear of being on camera and how to get over that fear because Daniel had it too.

I had it in the past.

I used to freeze on camera.

So how do you get over that?

And then once you are doing that, are you wasting your time on busy tasks?

People talk about starting a yoga business and then growing a yoga business.

And if you're in that phase where you have something going and you want to grow it, what does that really mean?

And how do you know if you're growing the business?

Well, Again, Daniel is a senior marketing manager, so he knows what really works to actually grow a business.

And it might not be what you think and you might actually be hiding behind busy work as we'll talk about in this episode.

I know I've done it as well as no shame or judgement in this, but we'll catch some of those things in this interview and we'll talk about what actually does grow the business.

And we'll talk about the mindset shift that helps make your marketing feel more authentic so you're not feeling pushy.

And what you would actually do if you want to grow an online business doing something related to teaching yoga, whether it's teaching classes, trainings, workshops, if you want to grow online, Daniel's an amazing resource.

We had a great interview and he is again, the senior marketing manager at Uscreen.

And they have a great YouTube channel that's a great resource if you want to grow online.

And you can find him on LinkedIn if you want to work with him one-on-one.

I'll add the links for all that in the show notes.

But let's listen now to the interview with Daniel Cosmola from.

Uscreen.

Welcome back to the Yoga Teacher Training Podcast.

I'm Jeremy Devons, and today I'm very grateful to be having a guest on whose name is Daniel Kosmala.

He is the senior marketing manager at Uscreen, which is arguably the best platform for yoga teachers online to grow their yoga.

Business online and I'm going to, we're going to talk a lot about marketing, business sharing online and moving online and a lot of people are going to be very interested in this topic.

So thank you for being here, Daniel.

Course, thanks for having me, Jeremy.

Yeah, so the first thing they just jump into is just people who are teaching yoga already in person.

They want to move online.

They like the idea of moving online, the freedom, the potential increase in income, reaching more students, helping more people.

But there's some sort of block and it just doesn't happen and they don't know why.

And I talked to so many teachers who are like this.

They they want to be online.

They know it's ideal for them, but there's something stuck there.

So what do you think are some of the things that could help people bridge that from the in person to online gap?

That's a great question.

Well, I think there there are a number of things that I think get in the way in that process.

One is you're going to have to be on camera and be relatively comfortable with it, which can be a big leap if you've never done it before.

And I'll come back to that one because I think that's a really big one.

I think the next thing is that people when you're running a business or thinking about starting even a digital business, one of the things that happens is people get caught up in doing the the low hanging fruit at all times.

It's like what's the easiest thing I can do right now that'll make me feel like I'm working on my business, but you're actually not.

And there's a lot of that.

And I wouldn't, that is kind of AI don't know if it's a universal truth or experience, but it is very prevalent just based on the fact that like I work with customers, you screen customers of all shapes and sizes from 10 subscribers all the way to thousands of subscribers in their membership platform.

And all of them have this problem where they're like, I'll ask them, how do you spend your time working on your business?

And they're like, well, you know, I spend a fair amount of time responding to emails, you know, trying to figure out what I should do next.

And and they'll just rattle off a list of things.

And I'm like, OK, well, if we look at a list of priorities, where do those rank?

And they're like probably in the bottom half for the most part.

I'm like, OK, well, you know, your marketing's broken.

Why aren't you focused on figuring that out?

And they're like, because I don't know what to do.

It's really hard.

And I, I don't know what to do next or like, I have no one to help me.

And I don't know who to trust in order to get help.

And that's not like exclusive to just that area of problems.

It's the same thing when you're making that transition from physical to digital.

It's I don't know what the right next step is.

I'm not sure how I should go about this.

I have no idea what to say on camera.

I get on camera and I start sweating and stammering and saying you just get kind of locked up.

And so I think figuring out how to prioritize the actually important things, it's, I mean, it's kind of like doing maintenance around my house.

Like there's a paint scuff on the wall right there.

There's a spot on the floor where my dog licked the wall and licked the paint off the wall a couple weeks ago.

And I'm like, that is a higher priority to get that fixed because it looks bad.

And yet it's been there for weeks because I'm like, well, let me mop the floor or let me vacuum the dog hair.

And I'm not doing these important aesthetic improvements that will like if I were to try and go sell my house, would make a much bigger difference than there being dog hair on the floor, which anyone can fix in an instant.

So it's like, stop worrying about the low priority stuff and like, yeah, would it be great to get everything done?

Yes.

But is it more important to get the low priority stuff done or like the high impact things?

And I think if you can kind of make that shift and force yourself to do the hard work, it makes a big difference.

Yeah, I've definitely seen that.

And as a business owner myself, this is a common question.

I've hit up against a lot of like, what do I focus on next?

Because a lot of teachers get into teaching and wanting like freedom and choice and to be their own boss.

And a lot of teachers end up being independent contractors at a studio.

So they just need to show up and teach and they choose what they teach.

They often times pick when they teach and where they teach.

But now there's just a lot of choice.

And it's way easier to just spend a few hours designing a logo on Canva or just updating your bio on your website rather than the actual things that are going to grow the business.

When we talk about growing a business, that usually is going to involve more people finding you, more customers, more sales, and more deepening those relationships.

And that's marketing.

And that's a different skill.

Like a lot of yoga teachers don't learn marketing skills in yoga trainings.

So I personally had to seek out marketing teachers and business teachers and learn to prioritize that as much as the teaching.

And I, I think you're, I totally agree with you.

It's, it's very easy to end up focusing on the low hanging fruit and the insignificant things.

And then the things that actually do grow the business, just kind of, it's like they're not always so easy and so clear.

So how do people like get clarity of like what to focus on?

That's a great, that's a great follow up question.

I laughed when you when you said the designing a logo on a Canva because I've done that exact thing.

Like I'm 3510 years ago, before I had kids, I used to have a lot of free time and I was just exploring like try to build a business from scratch.

All of them failed because I was doing these exact things.

It was like, cool, I have this great idea for a business.

I'm going to go just build it and see what happens.

And I'd go get a, a logo on like Upwork or fiver.

And then I would go buy a domain and then I would build a website with Squarespace or something.

And I'd be like, Oh, this is awesome.

And I'd send it to my friends and be like, Hey, this sounds cool.

And then I'd be like, shoot, now what do I do?

Oh, I actually like have to go do the work.

And so for people in, in the, in the fitness industry or yoga industry, like for you trying to figure out what the next steps are, it's to me, it's what makes you uncomfortable.

Like what ideas do you have that make you uncomfortable?

There's probably a good chance there's something there that you need to dig a little bit deeper into.

I think the second thing is like, you can come up with an idea in a vacuum for how you're going to do this and how you're going to approach it.

And that's fine.

That's certainly one way you can approach this.

And people have and will continue to be successful doing that.

However, the thing that I really love and I, I really feel like the world has shifted towards is like, go get insights from an ideal set of customers.

Go figure out the people that you want to reach or even the people in the studio that you're currently reaching, like figure out what they consume online.

If you're wanting to make that shift to go online, go talk to them.

Be like, I want 30 minutes of your time to sit.

I'm going to pay for your coffee, your smoothie, whatever, after my class.

And I just want you to tell me about what you do online.

The yoga content you consume on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok or the newsletters that you get.

What do you like?

Why do you like them?

Which ones do you actually currently subscribe to?

And all of that is quite literally research and data for your business that you can then take.

You could use AI to analyze all of your notes and tell you like, okay, based on this, here's some ideas of what you could go do to make a difference in your business.

Now, let's say you're not going to do that.

I would advise against it because I really think, like getting insights from your audience is one of the most powerful things you can do at any stage of your business.

I talked to people who have no business.

I talked to people who are doing $70,000 a month and have never talked to their audience.

And then they go do it and all of a sudden they're making $100,000 a month and you're like, yeah, it was worth $30,000 a month ago.

Listen to your audience and figure that out.

Yeah.

So I really believe heavily in doing that one first.

Another place you can do this is like social media comments.

You can go look at people who already exist on the Internet who are making content similar to what you would want to create and just look at what they're creating, what's getting the most, what reels are getting most views and then figure out why are those getting views.

And then listen, you can go like, it's not stealing, but like copying people is an art form or like copying formats is an art form.

There are film makers, there are musicians, composers, songwriters.

John Williams is one of the greatest film composers of all time.

And there are countless like dissections on YouTube of like the Star Wars theme actually came from classical music written in the the 1600s or whatever it is.

Like great artists steal is a very common trope.

And like in this instance, go if it's here's what I eat in the day as a yoga instructor, There are thousands of posts like that and people still eat it up because it's personal, it's relatable.

And go film your first one, post it, look for feedback, and then do it again and go.

So go find people in your niche, look at their reels, what's doing well, what's not, What are people saying in the comments that is just as valuable as sitting across the table from somebody who sat through one of your classes as well.

And so I really think like, start there and then use that to build and do stuff that you're actually going to get feedback from real people.

Don't go do stuff that like at this stage, you don't need to go do stuff that's going to make you feel good because you're going to get feedback that does not make you feel good.

And that's OK.

That's part of building a business.

That's part of doing the work that you're doing is like you're not always part of being an entrepreneur is failure.

And I have this conversation with the people using Uscreen all the time.

I'm like, you can't be discouraged because we ran in a test and it didn't work because that's like you're looking at it the wrong way because I look at it as like perfect.

One more thing we don't, we know that we're not going to repeat again in the future because it didn't work for this reason and this reason.

Now let's go try the next experiment on the list that we think will have an impact.

And you've got to approach your work just like that.

Like not everything's going to hit most of your stuff won't In baseball, you're if you hit the ball 2 out of 10 times, you're doing pretty good.

You're doing pretty good.

If you hit it 3 out of 10 times, you're doing amazing.

So like that is not too dissimilar from what we're talking about here.

So I think it's finding things where you can get live tangible feedback and incorporating that into what you do next is like the best kind of next step.

That's really good advice.

And I have a friend of mine who spent about nine months building what he thought was like the perfect coaching system for his clients and made all these beautiful PDFs and all this amazing graphic design.

And they do this step and that step and all these details.

And he told me he got to the end of it after nine months and he, like, pressed enter on the last paragraph of the thing and he just kind of sat back.

He's like, OK, I did it.

Now what?

And he froze.

Like it's like he didn't know what to do with the thing that he's that was like the perfect thing he was building.

And first thing I thought was this.

I've, I've done that too as a musician.

I did that in the past, spent years making the perfect album.

And then it's like, well, actually now I need to like share this with people.

I need to go play.

I need to get feedback.

Like, do people actually like these songs?

And it's, it's an easy trap to fall into, I think in the early stages of creating something and like you want to create something and make it perfect and then share it.

But what you're talking about is really like the entrepreneurial spirit and the energy of like, what do people actually want?

And like, try to make a, a beta version of that and start building on that.

And like then you're actually building something people actually already said they want versus like building something nobody said they wanted that you think they might want.

And then you try to somehow jam those puzzle pieces together and it's this guy like ended up kind of scrapping that whole thing.

It's been like 5 months now.

And he just, he's not using that thing that he spent nine months building because it's not really what people need that he's interacting with.

Right.

I've, I have started three businesses in the past and all of them failed because I didn't listen to customers or just I didn't.

It's not because like they were talking to me and I wasn't listening.

I just didn't even think about that part of the process and using that to make the business better.

I was just like, this is the product I need to sell it to people.

Let me go talk to people about the product and hope that that's going to work.

And then when it didn't, I was like, why isn't this working?

This is a good product.

And it was like, well, you didn't listen, you didn't ask for feedback, you didn't improve the product based on feedback.

You didn't iterate, you didn't try to make things better or different or, or change the way you're doing.

You just kept doing the same thing, expecting different results and then wondering why didn't this work?

And now 10 years have passed and like now I get it, but back then I didn't.

And I if some, I wish somebody had come along and told me the same things that I'm able to tell people now, which is like, go get real feedback that matters and then adjust accordingly.

And you'll eventually find the right people who resonate with your content or with your approach to things, and you'll start to get some traction, and you can build from there.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I just saw a little video of Jeff Bezos back in the early days of Amazon and they're like, are you guys an online business?

But now you're starting distribution centers.

So are you an in person business?

Are you online or in person?

What is it like?

What are you doing?

And he said, we are relentlessly focused on customer satisfaction.

So if the customers are going to benefit from us having distribution centers closer to their location, then we're going to build distribution centers.

And then he kept asking all these questions.

The interviewer like, but that makes you an in person business and the thought you're an online business.

And he's like, we are relentlessly focused on customer satisfaction.

If the customers wanted, that's what we're going to do.

And I love that.

And of course now Amazon's like super, super successful business, but back then, like people were like, what is this?

What are you doing?

It doesn't mean.

And didn't really think that it would be as big as they were.

So yeah, I found that to be true as well.

It's like talk to people and, and I like your advice too, of like, well, then people might say, well, I don't have a lot of students yet, so who am I going to talk to?

And yeah, now with comments on videos and people doing similar things on YouTube or whatever online, you can see, you know, people leave feedback and and for a lot of yoga teachers, we don't actually get a lot of feedback on classes.

Like teachers will teach a class and the feedback is always, thank you, that was great.

That's just what I needed.

I'll be back.

Like it's always positive.

It's always broad like this.

Maybe it's like all that back thing helped my back a lot.

But you don't, that is not enough feedback to like really do anything like build something or create something new with.

So like what you're saying is like have a deeper conversation or look at other stuff online.

If you don't have those clients to talk to, I think that's amazing advice.

Yeah, I mean, you spend $5 on a coffee at Starbucks for that person like you, You have tendency of 10 people in your class.

You're probably at least friendly enough with a couple of them to say, hey, can we grab some coffee?

I'd love to talk to you about an idea I had and get your feedback since you've been coming to my classes for however long or whatever it is, and that the insights you'll get from that are worth hundreds more than the $5 coffee that you bought for them.

Absolutely.

And then usually those people are like, well, whatever you do, I'm signing up so.

Exactly.

You got your first client.

Yep, exactly.

And so then the next step is, well, if we're talking today mostly about moving online, so this means that if you're going to be online, there's a camera involved for you to be seen by the people.

So now you you've clarified, OK, maybe Susie could really benefit from a prenatal training of some sort or whatever the topic is doesn't matter so much.

But usually there's going to be some involvement of a camera and you in front of a camera, not in front of a person, not in front of a class, just you looking at the camera lens.

And I know for me, I froze up for a few years trying to do this, like many years ago, like when I first started as, OK, I want to be on YouTube, I want to be online, got all the set up, turn the camera on.

And like, I couldn't really breathe very deeply.

I didn't know what to say.

I froze up.

It was so awkward to me.

And it took me a few years to like, know how to talk to a camera, like I'm talking to a person or a class.

So I know you've got a lot of experience with this too.

So what do you say to those people who are in that spot?

Yeah, that that's a, that's a extremely common 1.

I don't know of anyone who can get in in front of a camera their first time and just feel like, yeah, this totally feels normal.

Me just talking into this dark black circle that feels like it's sucking the life out of me.

That's how it feels at the start.

It does get better and it does change from there.

I used to not be on camera.

I used to like I studied film and production and in college and was like, I'm going to get into post production or behind the scenes of production.

I have 0 desire to be in front of the camera.

I think I would be terrible at it.

I get way too nervous.

I'm bad at public speaking.

I sweat profusely, like disgustingly so when that happens.

And I don't know that I have anything interesting to say.

And I know I'm not the only one who thinks those exact same thoughts.

And the truth of the matter is like about sometime in my early 20s, I had the realization I was like, the world is shifting hard towards video.

And this was like late 2000s, early 2010 probably like YouTube was really starting to pop for for the first time, Youtubers, bloggers, all that was happening.

And I was like, man, being on camera would be such a valuable.

Like being comfortable on camera is such a rare skill that it probably would paint pretty well if I can figure out how to do this and be comfortable with it.

So I had the benefit of I was young, I had no kids and my wife works night shifts.

So three nights a week, I was just like by myself.

And I was either hang out with friends, play with my dog, work or clean the house.

And I was like, I think out of all the options, like I spent some time with friends, obviously, and, and my dog, who who if you hear is like laying right behind me.

But the most common thing I did was work and I would just figure out fun things to do.

That's why I got into drop shipping.

It's why I started three different businesses during that period of my life, None again, none of which were successful at that point in my life.

But the other thing I did was like, OK, I've got camera gear.

I've been shooting stuff for years.

No one's home.

I can't embarrass, be embarrassed because no one's ever going to see this footage.

So I set my camera up in my living room and I hit record, sat down in front of it and was like, I would just pick a topic.

Like it could be something I saw in the news.

It could be a funny video I saw.

And I would just talk to the camera for at least 10 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes.

And it was terrible.

And I'm, I, I should have kept some of that footage just to like show people that, that like, I'm not making this up, but I was so embarrassed at the time that like, I would take it, I would force myself to rewatch it and I would take notes and just be absolutely brutal with the feedback of like, why is this bad?

Like how does this compare to a Ted talk?

Because Ted talks at the time were really big.

I would watch Ted talks and then I would watch my footage and be like, got a long way to go.

But based on what these people are doing really well, here's what I'm doing really bad and how I can do it better.

I would delete the footage and then I would go do it again.

And I did that a lot like, and I would try different things.

Like I even tried to fake cry on camera once, which it was as cringy as it sounds, at least it still is to me.

I don't know how it was received back then, if anyone else ever saw that footage, but I wanted to like go through the breadth of like what was possible filming myself on camera.

And then I started, I made a bunch of random YouTube videos and then I did some stuff for a couple different jobs.

And then I ended up landing a job at Youscreen as a YouTube creator initially.

And this was almost six years ago.

And that because I had forced myself to get comfortable on camera, then I went and shot a video, sent it to the CEO of you screen and he, he emailed me back.

I was like, we're looking for a YouTube creator.

Would you be interested?

I was like, I wanted to get into software.

I wanted to get into the tech world.

And that was my foot in the door because I'd actually just been working in marketing for almost a decade.

And I was like, I'll get a chance to get into marketing in the tech world, but this is how I'm going to get my foot in the door.

And it was video.

And it was only because I forced myself to get on camera and do what was really uncomfortable and give myself brutal feedback to get better and get more comfortable.

Now I can switch it on like I'll have a arts team, our creative team at Uscreen is up to like four or five people and I'll be like, hey, we, we've got the script.

I've got to film 3 scripts today.

I'm going to go do it and I'll knock it out in 30 minutes and I'll be done.

And I turn on the camera, hit record and I can just turn it on at this point.

It's not intimidating, it's not scary.

It's just kind of comfortable.

And a big, big, big part of that, which this and this is the thing I didn't recognize like when I initially started this process is like, you can and should envision somebody on the other side of the lens.

You should think about who this video is for and how it's going to help them.

And that makes it a little less intimidating because if, if you're a yoga teacher and you're used to being in a room of 10 to 15 people or more and comfortably leading them through yoga, just imagine that you're doing that and, and there's a camera in the back of the room to help you for whatever the purpose is.

But you like the purpose of, of you being on camera is not the camera, It's to serve the people on the other side.

And if you, a lot of people see the camera and they lose sight of everything but that camera.

I know there's somebody that I, I know who you can turn the camera on and you can just see his eyes glaze over and like he can do it, but he's uncomfortable the whole time and he just like struggles to get through it.

And like even with coaching, it's really hard.

And you, so you've got to like, you can't just mentally shut down.

Like don't worry that you're looking at a lens, like I'm looking at a lens right now.

But I know that Jeremy's on the other side.

And then on the other side of that are a bunch of people who are incredible yoga instructors that really are hungry for what I have to share.

And because I know that I can provide value, I'm not concerned about me being uncomfortable on camera because I, I know my stuff.

And I think that's what a lot of people struggle with.

It's like they're, it's almost like selling, selling to people in person 1 to 1 is super uncomfortable for most people because you're like, I have this thing to sell.

You're a potential buyer.

I need to tell you about this thing.

And that's the wrong way to think about it.

The right way to think about it is I am coming to you and I'm not trying to sell you on you screen, but if I was I would I would not pitch you on all the features and all those incredible things.

What I would actually do is I would tell you about the people that we've impacted, the results that they've gotten, the things that they have to say about us.

And then why we're different than any of our competitors, which is that we give a crap.

Like we, our support is known for going above and beyond.

Like I have been working hands on with customers to help them improve their business and not really asking for, for much in return.

And that is like the difference between Uscreen and other companies.

And so like that right there is already far more compelling than if I were to come on here and be like, well, we have live streaming, we've got apps, we've got community features, we've got DMS like you can do coaching, you can do courses.

Like I could list features for days too.

But that's not the stuff that's going to resonate and make you excited about what we have to offer.

It's all those other things about the evidence of who we are and what we do and how we help that really makes it tangible difference.

And so if you can focus on that when you're on camera and that you're serving people with that on the other side, it's going to make an absolute world of difference.

Yeah, a lot of the times I imagine there's somebody, like a specific person I'm talking to.

Like for a lot of yoga teachers, I'll say like who's your most consistent student that you know, is going to be there in every class?

Oh yeah, Lauren, you know, she's always there.

OK, well, imagine Lauren is just making a video for Lauren.

That's it.

Or are you making a podcast for Lauren and it's just for her.

And if you do that, that and it will be applicable to everybody else too, like because everyone else is also an individual.

So that's a really valuable thing I found.

And I've, I knew 1 teacher who spent a lot of money, a lot of time finding her ideal customer avatar and doing like this visualization and this whole complex process.

OK, she's this year many years old.

She went to this college.

She has this many kids, this many pets, all this stuff.

And she's, she was very excited, like.

I got my.

Ideal customer.

I know who it is and she described this person and I know this teacher and I know her students.

And I was like, that doesn't sound like any of your students though.

Like that's almost the opposite of a lot of your students.

Like her students are like all like a certain age, certain, you know, all this stuff.

And this, this ideal customer she sort of thought was what it should be in her head was just not it.

And and she went this way and I just kind of like watched her go and try to market this thing to this ideal customer.

She thought it should be for a few months and then she it just wasn't going anywhere.

It was, she was struggling, she was frustrated, like it wasn't working.

And then she just went back to this.

I asked her this question like, well, who is the, the student who's most consistently at your class and just make it for her.

And then everything started to change after that or podcast grew or offers grew.

So that's really good advice.

And I've definitely seen that myself as well.

Of like, imagine you're talking to somebody on the other side.

It's not just a black circle on your camera and there's actual person there.

And then more people will relate to that and it just feels more natural.

And then another thing you talked about there is like the modeling.

So like then you, you record yourself and then you see how you are.

You compare it to Ted Talks, you compare it to other people.

So many yoga teachers online.

Now you can look at other yoga videos side by side with yours.

OK, I like this, don't like that.

And it's very humbling and it's can slow you down a lot.

It's like, OK, well, I'm going to need to improve this and that, but but also I think it's like, well, this kind of comes back to the priority too, of like, what's the most important thing there?

Like if you are modeling after somebody, doesn't matter so much about the lighting, the microphone, the this like there's so many things that are teaching a sequence, the poses you do camera angles.

How do how does a teacher listening to this like know what they should prioritize to improve upon first on their videos?

Oh, that question, man.

I've been answering this question in some shape or form for years and years and years.

I, I used to be, I'm just going to going to be very transparent and admit I used to be like a freak about gear.

Like I was like, I want the best.

Anytime there's new something available, I want it.

I want the best of the best because I want the crispiness.

I want the best audio.

I want the best I I used to be terrible at lighting.

I've gotten a little bit better these days, but still not great.

And to be honest, with the evidence that I've seen, it's more important that you have great content than great gear.

Great content can exist with just whatever gear, but you can have great gear and really bad content.

Really, really bad.

I'm a private example of that.

I've made really, really bad content with really, really great gear.

So I I am of a mind.

Cameras are so good, like cameras are so good these days.

You do not have to reinvent the wheel.

I would rather you spend money on prioritizing audio, especially as a fitness instructor and figuring that out then I would like on a camera or even lighting because lighting you can figure out people are willing to forgive camera quality.

You have a 4K camera in your pocket.

Almost everyone does, but audio, like bad audio is such a huge turn off in 2025, whether it's a podcast or a video or a movie that like the audio levels are messed up.

Like I deal with that even at home, which is crazy that in 2025, like I'll be watching a movie, it'll cut to, I know most people don't watch linear TV anymore, but like if I'm watching a movie on YouTube TV and it cuts to commercial and then all of a sudden the commercial volume is like this high and the movie was this and like, could we not?

Like, why can you not standardize?

So audio matters way more than you would expect.

And especially for fitness instructors, like, you don't want to hear the echo of the room you want.

So you want like, something that's on you, probably close to your mouth or a headset one, if you can, if you can deal with that.

So like, I think just spending a little bit of money on that is important, but I would rather you focus on making really, really, really good content, I think.

Yeah.

Does that answer that question?

Yeah, no, I agree.

And I found like many years ago, I found Alan Watson.

Like not really an Alan Watson.

He has a lot of recordings from like the 60s and 70s, and some of them are just terrible quality.

But I didn't care that much like, because it's Alan Watson.

I liked his philosophy, I liked his energy.

I liked what he was sharing the content, the actual value so much that it's like, even if it's terrible audio, it's like, OK, I'm willing to to listen and I want to hear it.

But but I agree, like having great audio quality is a big, big thing now and like very important.

But the content I would agree is that the content is probably, if you had to prioritize one thing, it's just actually just being a good teacher and actually providing really good value, even if it's just on your phone or whatever to start and you can improve those things later.

Yeah.

Yeah, and gear is just a, it's a black hole of options and opinions from people on the Internet.

Cuz inevitably you're gonna go to YouTube or wherever and search like best camera for yoga or best audio or whatever.

And that it is an unending black hole of video content about those things, which is fine.

Like there is some useful stuff, but also you you can end up in that traffic that we talked about earlier of like doing the low hanging, low priority stuff that does not drive impact for your business.

And it's more important that you focus on getting out there and making content that gets feedback regardless of how you shoot it, than it is like getting the gear dialed in.

Yeah, Is that same thing again of like actually engaging with people versus like spending months shopping, basically comparing microphones and lighting and all this stuff.

It's and then when you actually talk to people, you might say, what do you think about the lighting in my video?

Like what do you mean?

Or what do you think about the the camera setup?

Like I don't, I wasn't looking at the video so much.

I was just doing the practice, you know.

So a lot of times you'll hear things like that when you actually talk to the people.

They don't, they don't even really care about that or think about it.

But yeah, it's a nice touch and then, you know, a nice improvement, but it's secondary to the actual content and the what's actually going to help people for sure.

And just be sure, like, if you're going to get feedback on your content, don't show it to like your parents.

Yeah, show it to people who are like actually in your target target demographic.

So you don't.

Because like, I know if I send a video to my parents, the most common feedback I get is it's too dark.

I can't see what's going on.

And I the music's too loud.

I can't hear anything that's being said, which is like kind of helpful feedback, but not really the kind of feedback I'm looking for.

I'm actually looking for content feedback.

So just be smart about who you send it to and making sure that those are people you would actually end up serving in the long run.

Because if you take feedback from people outside of your target market, it's not actually going to help you.

Totally.

So then you touched on this already, like actually going into selling something, which is if you want to grow a business, like that's what you're doing, you're selling something.

But I think so many yoga teachers might already be like having sweaty palms just for me, talking about the word selling.

And like, I don't like it.

It's awkward.

I feel pushy.

I don't want to, you know, spiritual, I don't want to push people.

So sure, you've heard a lot of this for many people, many clients and teachers online.

So how do we go from, OK, you've got this skill, you love teaching yoga, you love helping people.

You want to help people.

You've talked to an audience and like, you've figured out what they want.

Now you've got to sell that to them.

And, and you've talked about it a little bit already of like not focusing so much on like the benefit or like the features, but more like how it's going to serve them.

But yeah, how do people make this transition to feeling confident and selling?

I think one of the the good places that that you can start with that is think about how you buy stuff.

Like when you're, when you stumble across an ad for something that you're interested in in buying and you tap it, or maybe you swipe through the carousel of pictures on Instagram because you're interested.

Like when you then start entering that sales process and maybe you sign up for an e-mail list to get a discount and they start nurturing you through that.

Whatever it is, the ones that are the most compelling are not the ones that come out like swinging really hard.

In my experience, it's a, a really great product that can speak for itself in, in, in a lot of cases, not always, but a lot of the times they're focused on like what does this help you accomplish?

What, what end result does this get you as the consumer of this thing?

And I think if you, you have to start thinking through your product through that lens first and foremost.

Because if, again, if you come at it from the, the vantage point of like, I have a product and there are people who need to buy it and I have to sell it too, because I need to make money to survive or whatever it is.

And you're just like I, I walk up the best way to think about this.

And the one, the most common way I help people understand this is like, I've been married to my wife for 12 years.

We've known each other for 14 or 15 years.

We met at a baseball game in Atlanta 15 years ago, 14 years ago, something like that.

If I had walked up to her that night and I was like, I think I'm going to marry you.

How do you feel about that?

And like, tried to sell and was like, you want to go on a date?

Pretty sure I would have gotten shot down.

I'm pretty sure she would have been like, this is creepy.

I don't know you.

I don't know anyone.

Like I know some people who know you, but they don't know you that well.

It's going to be a no for me, dog.

Whereas my actual approach was like, OK, let's, let's start building something here.

OK, we, we, we have some friends in common.

What do they know about you?

What do they know about me?

Let's find out where the commonalities lie.

Great.

First step.

Hey, would you do you want to hang out again?

Like we go to school.

We actually go to the same school together.

Maybe we should hang out.

Do that a few times.

Actually, I really enjoy spending time with you.

You like you, you've brought me into your loop.

Let's go on a real date now.

And it just progressed from there.

Now 15 years later, 3 kids later, like we're still hanging out and and going through it because I, I'm warmed her up to the process.

Like we warmed each other up to that selling process of like, yeah, I think this is going to work long term.

Let let's let's make it official.

And a lot of the times people approach selling and not in that way at all.

They don't think of it as relational in any sense.

And I'm here to tell you that selling in 2025 and beyond is more relational than it is ever been, especially when it comes to selling something that is a recurring monthly charge.

If you're just selling gear, that's a one time.

Like if you're just trying to get me to buy a yoga mat from an ad, that's a different story.

That should be like really great product, really great testimonials, really compelling price point or positioning.

Boom, you can sell that pretty quickly to to a lot of people.

If I try to sell that way on a membership, that's exactly like what what I just described of what I tried to do to what I in an alternate universe, I tried to do with my wife and like get her to marry and be on the first time, first time I met her and it just doesn't work.

What happens with that is that you end up with high churn rates, your business collapses.

It's a it's a whole mess, but with something with selling in 2025, it the more relational you are, the better.

Like people want to know more about you.

They want to hear about you might think you're the most boring person in the universe.

And I guarantee there are things about you that I would love and that would resonate with me.

But unless you tell me about those and find ways to share them with people, they're never going to know and they're never going to have that attachment to you or your business.

And so finding a way to communicate that in a way that's not, I'm selling you something.

I it costs $20.00 a month and you're going to get these things.

And instead turning that into, I have been teaching yoga for 22 years.

In those 22 years I've worked with 15,000 plus people.

And on average, those people are going from this sad, no direction in life, a little bit overweight, not toned, not flexible, and just completely unhappy.

2 within 12 months, they're in the best shape of their life.

They're feeling mentally the best they've ever felt.

They're the most at peace they've ever felt.

And their their outlook on life has completely changed.

And now they're multimillionaires.

Whatever, whatever the selling points are of the end result of your program is far more compelling.

And then I can say, and that's just one of 10,000 people who've had those same results.

And here's what they've said about working with me or working with my content or my program or my classes.

That's much more exciting and compelling to even consider looking into them when I list off random features just because you think you have to sell something like that.

It's much more compelling to talk about who you are, where you've been, what you've done and who you've helped, how you've helped them, and why any of that freaking matters to anyone.

And if you can cover those things, you're in a much better position to sell than all those other instances.

Yeah, this is the guy.

I know somebody personally who's in a place where she's struggling a bit financially and she teaches like Yoga, not a Beta.

And she's pretty good at this sort of like everything you're saying.

But this thing comes up in her.

And I think a lot of teachers might relate to this is OK, it's getting a little close and the money in the bank account and like bills are coming due.

And I don't starting to feel like this urgency and scarcity and like a little bit of fear of like now I need to make money and like putting some pressure on this now.

And I don't want to put pressure on it.

I don't want to be pushy, but I do need to make the money and you need to make the pay the bills.

So what do you say the teachers are like this?

Like there is a sense of like urgency and pressure now.

Like they've got to pay their bills this month and they've got to make more sales, and they don't want to become pushy or inauthentic in some way.

Yeah, that's a that's a a unique and interesting question.

I don't get asked a lot.

My gut reaction be it's OK, it's going to be OK is the initial thing like you'll figure it out.

The second more tangible and helpful thing I'll say is my gut instinct in that case would be to like run a run a campaign or run a sale or special promotion of some sort, right.

Because if, if you're not making the sales that you want on your main thing, then there's a reason for that that you should dig into when you have the time and you like, there's a problem there that you need to diagnose, you need to face and you need to figure out how to fix it because that shouldn't be the case.

Now that being said, there's problem.

There is always an element of like you can run a, a promotion.

And as an example, I have a customer who I was working with at Youscreen in January and she has a big event she attends every year with like 30,000 people in attendance.

She her, she gets a ton of additions to her e-mail list.

And previously she would do a huge annual discount, like a huge sale on her annual subscription in January.

But every year she would see the same pattern, which is like she'd get a big spike because she's offering a big fat discount.

And then the next month things would drop back down.

So she'd have these, she has these four big revenue spikes every year, which are like, fine, it's helped her grow her business from like 0 to reasonably sustainable.

But my, my argument for her was like, hey, we've got to take a longer term approach to this and we can still make money without like caving and giving people a predictable discount that like Will will condition them to not want to pay full price because they're like, I'll just wait two months and she'll do a sale again and I'll, I'll jump in then because we want people to pay full price.

We want us to pay the value that you're worth and we want you to build a more sustainable business.

So what I did with her, I was like, hey, we're going to figure out the recurring revenue funnel.

That's fine.

You have all these emails.

What we can do to nurture them in the meantime is you have this eight week program that's a bundle of, of classes, basically an 8 week course.

And what we're going to do is we're going to package that up, say it's $35.00 because her her monthly prices, they're like it's like 15 or $19.00 a month, I can't remember.

And I was like, OK, so we're basically giving them two months of content.

Let's say the price is $35 basically for this because it's really some of her best stuff.

And then we're going to, we're going to offer a discount and run a flash sale, make it $25 for the entire thing.

And that is a one time purchase.

They'll pay $25.

They'll get 8 weeks of content.

They can excuse me, they can access it through her app.

It comes with some supporting materials, access to her via e-mail, whatever else.

And we're going to say this deal, this thing is only available for Wednesday until Friday at midnight.

And she had previously tried to sell this exact bundle and had gotten like 7 sales.

Well, we added the constraints of the time, which is an urgency thing, which you mentioned.

Urgency and scarcity are two of the biggest levers you have when it comes to marketing.

There's either a limited supply or a limited amount of time, more or less.

And you can use those levers over and over and over.

So we use the amount of time.

We said Friday is when this deal ends.

We're not going to offer it again after that.

In that basically 48 hour window, we were able to drive about 120 sales, which replaced her revenue the previous year from the annual sale and actually was one of her best month ever on the platform since she joined New Screen, which she's been with us for four or five years.

And after that I was like, great, now those people are actually being nurtured for 8 weeks with your content and getting to decide, OK, we've got a basically 120 warm leads who've said to us, I like your content enough to pay for it.

Now I want to see if I can get value from it and our job in the 8 weeks to help them get as much value as possible and make them fall in love with the program and all the features and the things that are available.

And then we can come in and be like, by the way, we have a membership program that you get that program plus a dozen other plus many programs and community and all these different features that are available to them that make it more sticky and compelling.

And we can them to membership.

And while we're doing all of that, we're gonna go fix your actual funnel and get that up and running.

So that's like a deep dive into what a membership actual example would feel like.

So for you, I'll dial it back to the specific takeaways.

Like I would probably consider running a short campaign that's either limited by supply or time.

And you have to have messaging that's really resonates with people.

And that comes back to the knowing your audience, knowing what they want and meeting them with that.

Because if you can have those things dialed in and then you add time or limited kind of supply, you're going to you're going to make more sales.

And so if you can do that with testimonials, personal stories that resonate with people, it's going to be that much more effective.

That's great advice.

And I know this person well that her offers are not in any way time bound or scarcity based or urgent.

There's no scarcity or urgency in their offer.

It's just like, here's what I do and here's what it costs and just, you know, whoever wants it can sign up whenever.

And then, yeah, there's less incentive, less motivation, less reason for people to sign up.

Now maybe they look at it and go, it's interesting.

Yeah, I want to do that, but not right now.

But if there is some level of like authentic scarcity and urgency, like, you know, she can only take on so many clients this month or she only has as much time available for these sessions or whatever.

And if she just included that, yeah, that would I could see that definitely increasing her sign ups almost overnight.

And just just that little thing.

I've already what she already has the great offer, but it's just adding these kind of little things can make a huge difference.

For sure.

Yeah, yeah.

And then it allows her to take some of the pressure off herself of her own diversity about her own income and urgency of this, because now it's like she's basically providing a better offer.

It's a more defined offer.

It's yeah.

And it's clarifying like the value to people because a lot of times people want to do it, but they just put it off.

It's like a Amazon wishlist.

It's like, yeah, I definitely want that, but I'll just wait.

I don't know why, but I'll just wait.

Yeah, I have a lot of things in my Amazon wishlist.

Yeah, exactly.

So and then if there's a sale though, like Amazon does like the the Amazon day or whatever, the Prime Day.

So then it's like, oh, now you know, just for today you can buy that thing you wanted for like half off.

It's OK now.

Now you have a reason to buy it.

Yep, exactly.

Yeah, so lots of great stuff.

I feel like we could talk for a long time here.

So I really appreciate your time and energy and your your thoughts and input.

I think lots of great marketing advice here.

I think people will find it super valuable.

Anything you want to share to to end with today?

No, I would just say you can find me on social.

My name, it's just at Daniel under score because Molly, you're welcome to reach out.

I love helping people with marketing and I, I have worked with a lot of fitness people.

And if you're interested in video monetization online, EU Screen's a great platform for that.

It's just uscreen.tv.

And if you end up digging into the funnel, make sure to let us know that you found us via this podcast.

Yeah, it's an amazing platform.

And you, you actually, you help people like you mentioned, you're helping this client of Uscreen.

So you help people with their marketing in Uscreen, right?

That so yeah, my, my role has shifted a bit over the last few months, but I'm doing more and more of that.

And I've actually spent like most of 2025 so far, like in the weeds on calls with customers basically every day.

There was a point in February where I, I was like on calls all day every day.

And I've scaled it back because we're trying to figure out like how do we scale this to more of our customers?

But there's it's just me doing it right now.

So it's like my we're basically limited by my time.

And so now I'm like, I've taken a bunch of learnings from what we've we've done so far and it's like, OK, well, how do we, how can I teach this to other coaches basically and have them help other people that use screen so we can make this a bit more accessible because right now it's relatively small scale.

Very cool.

That's that's amazing that you offer that.

And obviously, like you say, the result is like super valuable to the clients.

Yeah.

So, yeah, again, thank you, Daniel.

It's so nice to meet you and thanks for being here today.

Thanks for having me.

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