Paying a yoga instructor if no one shows to class?
I own a small gym and group fitness studio that has recently opened. I have two yoga instructors who get paid per student for their classes. They are not gym employees but independent contractors. If no one shows up to a class should they expect to be paid? I want to be fair but I do not want to take a loss on the classes. I want them to have incentive to bring students in, but so far all the students have been gym members. They also get free gym membership as instructors. One instructor has told me that she gets $10 for a class where no one shows at another studio, but that is an established studio that does classes only, where as we have only had three classes so far. The first one, no one came, the second we had two students and the third we had one. Our class max is five, due to the small space.
Hi Christine,
I probably have no business commenting on this since I don’t know anything about Yoga or never owned a studio. But this sounds like a marketing issue – you need to put “butts in the seats.” Where are you drawing students from? Is the instructor responsible for filling the class or are you? If you have a good instructor that you want to keep but don’t have students, you might have to eat a little bit of $$ to retain them until you fill the classes. Good Trainers/Instructors won’t hang around long if they’re not making money. You need to come up with a good marketing strategy to fill your classes. Good luck Christine!
Paul Thomas
www.homeworkoutguy.com