Taylor Odore

Ben BeeriToday on the authentic journey, I'm joined by somebody who embodies courage, vision and the power of creating from scratch. Taylor Odore, at just 25 years old, opened Open Aerial Yoga in Huntington Beach. Taylor didn't stop there with the foresight to invest in high level consulting and mastering paid ads. She filled her studio with even more members and quickly scaled beyond herself, building an incredible team of w two employees, including sales roles, who she credits as a big part of her success.

Her impact has caught the attention of local celebrities, and even landed her a segment on the Real Housewives of Orange County. Beyond her thriving studio, Taylor has become a rising thought leader in the yoga and Pilates business world, teaching women how to open and scale their dream studios using using the same strategies that worked for her. Her philosophy is simple but powerful. Lead with authenticity, provide real value, and put the systems in place to nurture the dream clients who find you.

Taylor's story is about more than building a successful business. It's about vision, trust, and creating opportunities that didn't exist before. I can't wait to dive into her journey, her insights and the lessons she's learned along the way. Please welcome to the podcast, Taylor Odore.

Taylor OdoreThank you so much for the introduction, Ben. I really appreciate the invitation. Absolutely. It's so great to have you here. I'm excited. Yeah, same. No. So what are

Ben Beeriwe looking at right now when it comes to building yoga studios? You see so many of them popping up. Yes, especially where we live, especially Orange County. And not but not just in Orange County. Yeah, like you go around the country, you see all these different yoga studios and all these different apps. What goes into starting that or the motivation to doing that?

Taylor OdoreYoga and Pilates studios are almost always opened by women who have been teaching yoga and Pilates as employees who are going to studios and thinking, If I had a studio, I would do it this way, or This would be my policy. This is how I'd structure things. And a lot of people get really excited about the logo and the brand colors and the arched mirrors and what color the walls are going to be. But that is actually one of the least important things when it comes to building sustainable studio community, especially on a membership based model.

So it's really fun to catch people at that point of mass motivation and interest, and then help make sure that they have a really good foundation that they do succeed. What does a foundation of success look like? What is a blueprint of success? Like, how do you start with that? For a yoga or pilates studio, most women again are already teaching. Being really involved in the community in a genuine way, just making connections with students because students do get attached to teachers so that when you if and when you do change your schedule, maybe you're going to another studio. But when you do open one, if you've been teaching, your students are likely to be really interested in checking it out. And you said you were on The Real Housewives of Orange County. That sounds like something that was pretty fun for you to It was really fun. Yes, I actually didn't realize how important it was at the time, and I hadn't watched too much of the show. I did a little bit of research, but I'm actually just not from here. Otherwise,

think I would have been a little bit more into the show. Am so grateful for, first of all, how fun it was. It was a great experience for me and Natalie, who I brought along to help me with the sound bath after the air yoga class. It was an amazing time to film. The crew loved us. It felt like we were all best friends. We spent a ton of extra time after filming hanging out and playing in the hammocks. I had an amazing time with the cast as well, the ladies, especially Shannon Boudoir. I loved chatting with her.

A lot of people were interested in, Oh, how many new students came in? This is going to be a big break, the episode's going to come out, and you're going to get this wave of new students. But really, where I found the most benefit was people that were already in our community being really excited. The way I made an event for that was we did an open house where we had a watch party because we have a TV in the studio. And that was a really fun opportunity to just it felt like a sleepover. We all watched it and celebrated the studio. I also invited some other business owners that had little clips on the show to share the light with me, so we played some other small business clips on the TV for everybody.

And it also really opened up the door for a lot of studio owners to contact me and finally reach out and ask, Hey, whatever you're doing seems like it's working. Would you mind sharing? And there's nothing I love talking about more than how I run my studio and what works.

Ben BeeriAnd what does work?

Taylor OdoreA membership based business model is definitely the way to go. Um, that's how I prefer to run a yoga studio. It helps with community. People are constantly going. Um, I know that I have memberships at a couple studios and it is my whole personality. I cannot get through a first conversation with someone without telling them where I work out and that's where I meet a lot of amazing people. That's where I met you, right? So making sure that you have a third place that's not your house and that's not work where you go and feel like you're really living the real part of your life that you get to choose where you are and who you surround yourself with that's what gets people to keep coming and staying loyal.

And it's also important because people don't see results from working out once or twice. They see results from doing the workouts repetitively. So we want to make sure that they are continuing so that they reach their goals instead of feeling like their confidence isn't there because they didn't keep that promise to yourself. Confidence really comes from telling yourself you're going to do something and doing it, whether people see it or not your integrity. A lot of people are secretly not working out as much as they promise themselves they're going to every night. They say they're going work out in the morning and then they don't. So just doing what we can to build a reputation of solid members that are showing up getting the results they want is really important.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. And what are things that we can do to encourage people to continue to come and to establish that sense of home or that sense of community to get them to stick to the goals that they set for themselves?

Taylor OdoreIt's always going to come down to product, which I actually don't help with specifically, um, because I'm not an expert in every modality except early yoga. I know my way around a hammock. Product always comes first, but after you know that your classes and your teachers are meeting people's expectations and the classes are structured in a way that gets results, then we can start focusing on being welcoming, having a front desk that's nice, that always greets you by your name with a smile. If you don't show up, maybe someone texts or messages you on Instagram and is like, Hey, girl, where have you been? You always take this class. The hammock next to me was empty. Where have you been? Um, I know my front desk girl, Terren, just texted me as I was going up the elevator here, and she said, hey. You know, today's Lauren's hundredth class. I just baked her a whole batch of cookies and bought her a candle at Trader Joe's.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. Yeah. I gotta come take a 100 classes at your studio so I can get some cookies. To try Terrence Cookies. Yeah. No. That's awesome. That's awesome. You talk about building community and the importance of building community in a studio. What can you do to encourage not just other business owners that you're working with, but just people around you to, like, instill that sense of community in other people?

Taylor OdoreI think it benefits everybody. I know when I'm doing my everyday errands on the computer, making sure that the studio is running well, I feel good when I see that the same students are booking every day and that they've had memberships. We have people that have had their memberships since we sell founding members. Right? It just makes a better, well rounded experience, and it also makes it so much more welcoming when we do get a new student because they come in and they're like, Oh my gosh, everybody here is really cool, and it seems like they know each other.

And we always give students a first class welcome gift to give them a studio tour, get them all set up so that they feel comfortable, and then they can see that it's a place where they can fit in.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. And you've got these different systems in place to make students feel welcome. And how do you share that? I know you've been working on like consulting other yoga studios and helping them build and helping them grow and helping them nurture a customer base.

Taylor OdoreWhat are some of the things that you share with them? Something I actually shared today was the importance of instead of having a first class free or first class at a really sleep discount is to have an intro offer actually be a few weeks long because students don't get the results they're looking for after one class, but they usually only get that spark of motivation to sign up for something once. So they might not know that the results that they want are on the other end of a couple weeks. They think it's at the other end of one class, but we know that because we're experts in that. So if we can build our new student journey in a way that gets them to sign up for a few weeks, Then they come for a few weeks, and they get the results they want, and they meet new friends, and then they stick around longer. So that's something that we can do as studio owners to make sure that people are coming in and getting the experience they we know that they're looking for instead of the experience that they think they're looking for right when they book. And what is the experience that they're looking for? Transformation with group fitness. A lot of people, of course, are going think of physical fitness. Some people are working out for weight loss. It's not as big of a trend right now. Right now, Pilates is really popular,

and overall wellness is trending a lot more right now as well. So we're shifting away from body talk and we're shifting towards like, how do you feel? How do your clothes fit? What does your posture look like? What do you feel like when your alarm goes off in the morning? What time are you going to bed? And when you make one good decision, especially health, wellness and fitness wise, it usually snowballs into more decisions. So people usually use the word bender for unhealthy things like drinking bender, right? You can go on a wellness bender. You can sign up for your first yoga class and feel awesome and have a healthier lunch and not drink that night because you don't feel like you need a nightcap and then get better sleep because you didn't drink and then wake up and want to work out again. And then you get the physical results from the mental results. So it really is all about helping somebody transform themselves as a person. Yes. And that's what's so awesome about being a yoga studio owner or yoga teacher

is you never feel like you're selling somebody something. You're just informing them that the answer to their pain point is here. We have it for them. And we're going to sweeten the deal to make sure that you come in and try it and see if this is for you. And even if the workout isn't for them, maybe they got inspired to try something else. And that's what works for them. And that's okay, too. That's awesome. And then what are some of the most amazing, like,

Ben Beeritransformation stories that you've seen kind of throughout your time and not only at your studio, but I'm sure you've seen some before you inspired to open your studio?

Taylor OdoreYeah. Uh, we have a huge testimonials page on our social media and our website. I'm a really big fan of organic testimonials because we do see so many transformations. I'm like, Would you mind just letting us post that? And a lot of students say, No, thank you, that's totally okay, too. But we see a lot of people gain confidence. A lot of people show up and they are so nervous. I can relate to that. I just took my first class at a new studio recently and I even felt nervous walking in. I was like, oh my gosh, if I do this for a living and I'm like one of the most confident people I've ever met, what does a normal person feel like when they walk into a studio? And I'm always really cognizant of that. The transformations that we see are building a lot of confidence. People come into a studio and they are so scared they don't want to make eye contact with anyone.

A lot of people come to group fitness to feel anonymous, even though we do try to put a lot of attention on people and think that that is going make them feel special. Some people do just really want to recluse and not have any attention on them. But when we can give them the attention they deserve and then they feel comfortable sharing with us how much better they feel after class, that's amazing. I personally had a transformation from aerial yoga specifically. Aerial yoga is not difficult enough of a workout to where it's not cycling, it's not hot yoga, it's not cardio at all, so you're not going have a huge weight loss transformation from the thermodynamics of the calories you're burning there. But what happened for me was I was heavy, my lifestyle was a lot different at the time, I was still drinking, and going to aerial yoga made me feel beautiful and made me want to take better care of myself.

I was taking so many classes. There was no way I was going to stay up late or drink or eat like crap because I needed to feel good to do aerial. I ended up losing 70 pounds within the year that I started aerial, and I definitely contribute having a new healthy hobby to that doesn't necessarily need to be Ariel for somebody else, but that could be the catalyst for the kind of life that you want. It could be at the other end of trying something new. Now Taylor, for the people that don't know, can you tell us what aerial yoga is? Yes, that's a great question. A lot of people do not know what aerial yoga is.

So the aerial part of aerial yoga means that we're using the aerial hammock, and an aerial hammock is shaped like the letter U. And you can lay into the hammock for Shavasana, which would be just lying on the ground in corpse pose on a yoga mat. And then after Savasana, which is usually how we start new students in a new student class, there's an unlimited amount of different postures that you can do that might come from mat yoga or they might be unique to daily yoga that we use the hammock as a prop. So we can still use the prop to lengthen in yoga, to strengthen in Pilates.

It's all about where we're hung from the ceiling. And the farther away we go from the hammock, the more tension there is, and the closer we come to under the anchor point, the less there is.

Ben BeeriAnd what is it about aerial yoga that you love so much? I think it's

Taylor Odorefeeling so beautiful when I do aerial because our studio happens to use pink hammocks, which I find to be very beautiful, very feminine and soft. And just the swinging element of it is very closely related to your inner child. We do not feed this to them, but after a class people constantly say they feel connected to their inner child. And when they're in the hammock, they talk about feeling like they're back in their mother's womb or they're being swaddled. And a lot of people start and stop yoga and pilates classes all the time. They'll do a class or two at a studio, and then for some reason they don't go the next day. And in their head, they were going to go forever. And then they just don't. They don't know why. And they're getting excited and getting that dopamine hit.

And then they're losing their motivation before the second or third class. But with aerial yoga, we get to use the prop, which keeps things just that much more fun and interesting and unique. And you get really, really pretty pictures that are very flattering also from using the hammock. So that gets people coming back because they're seeing the results of them looking and feeling so good.

Ben BeeriWhat inspired you to share aerial yoga with other people and open up your own studio?

Taylor OdoreI just loved it. I mean, I remember I just walked past a studio one day when I was in college, and I saw him hanging in the window and I just immediately signed up. And then I went to three classes a day from when I found out it existed until COVID. And then I did a teacher training, actually not even thinking about teaching. I was taking classes at Flight Room and I'm still really close with the owners and all teachers there and students. Living in Seattle, taking classes at Flight Room, I signed up for their teacher training just because I would sign up for anything they did.

Literally anything. Retreats, teacher training, community events, every class. I was just so in love with their brand and the people that went there that I was just signed up for everything. So I did teacher training, and in my head, I wasn't like, I'm gonna teach and share this with people, but I just wanted to do teacher training because it was fun. And then after teacher training, they do naturally give you opportunities to do community classes and practice and test out. And then at the end of my community classes, there was a need at a new location they had opened, so I grabbed some weekend classes.

And I actually didn't think about opening a studio for a really long time. It wasn't something from the beginning at all. But every job I've ever had, I have had a little entrepreneurial idea. Every time I work somewhere, I'm like, Oh, what if I have one of these? And by the time that hit me, was just ready for it because I had just been older and had more resources. But I remember I was just leaning up against the wall after teaching, and I was counting the hammocks how much it cost per class, and I'd overheard what the rent was, and I was like, This could work.

Fast forward to now, there's so many expenses I didn't know about it. The math does not shake out anywhere near how I thought I would. Oh my goodness! But I'm grateful that I had it in me to find that out and figure out how to make it work. And it's been really fun to fall in love with aerial yoga and just want the studio to exist. I wanted the studio to exist because I just had it's been in my head and my heart. I I've never even had to, like, name it. Like, Open Ariel just, like I don't even remember coming up the name. It's just, like, always been in me.

And it was fun to decide I was going to open it. I was going to open it in my favorite place in the world, Orange County. And then thank God I found out I was actually good at running the business part of it because that's not true for a lot of small business owners, but especially yoga studios. Masters of Business Administration don't usually open yoga studios. Yoga teachers open yoga studios, and usually find out how tough it is until they're in the thick of it. There's a lot of resources out there to help them when they discover that.

Ben BeeriWhere do you feel like the entrepreneurial tendencies originated for you?

Taylor OdoreI don't know because neither of my parents are entrepreneurs. I remember when I was in college, I thought that being a professor would be the best job ever because you could just geek out on one thing all day and get paid for it. And then later, I found out that you could build something and then geek out on that one thing, but it's like your thing instead of just being an expert in one subject. And that is what's really fun to me about being an entrepreneur is I get so excited about whatever I'm working on that I felt like when I was an employee at other places, there's a ceiling. So being an entrepreneur, there's also, of course, the risk, which is why not everybody does it.

But I've been really grateful so far to be doing well. And I'm just addicted to I always say it feels like gambling. I don't gamble actually at all. I don't know how to gamble any game at all. Good because I probably would like it if I tried. But it feels like what I think it feels like to gamble of being so excited to try something. And then you try it and it works and you scale it is so fun for me. And if it doesn't work, then you can figure out why it didn't work and try it again or find someone that's already done it that knows how this works and ask them how to do it. There's a lot of different resources to pay people for their time to just figure out what works.

Ben BeeriWhat are some of the greatest challenges that you faced on your entrepreneurial journey?

Taylor OdoreIt was really hard for me to sign a commercial lease. I thought that signing a commercial lease was like renting an apartment. I was like, Yeah, I'll just call the landlord and be like, I want rent this. And they would just ask me for money and I would sign it. And that's not at all what it looks like. Renting a commercial property looks more similar to a mortgage transaction than it would to an apartment renting transaction as far as paperwork, risk, liability, terms, price, it's just a much larger transaction.

So, I'm really grateful that I had a great job at the time when I was looking and I had W-two income. So, I was able to sign a very large commercial lease, and we have a five year lease, which is a pretty big responsibility. Right. And I also used to feel a lot more isolated and I was constantly asking Chattypuy Tea and Reddit and Facebook about the smallest things. I felt like I couldn't make any decision about my business without asking people because if I just made it, then I would be wrong. Don't know what I'm doing. And that was actually true. That was not impostor syndrome. I didn't know what I was doing. But then I started finding out how to find out what works. And it looked like networking with other studio owners just for fun and information sharing out of my heart.

But also, it looked like some paid consulting as well to get the real answers. And also, a lot of accountability was really important because all the answers to what a lot of business owners problems are, are accessible somewhere on the Internet, especially with Jack GPT. Right. But you can absorb that and be like, oh, for sure, I'm going to implement that and then move on. But when you're working with somebody that's holding you accountable, you can't move on until you fix that thing. And that's what gets the results people want, or at least that's what worked for me. But it was really, really difficult to feel like I was shouting in the void and I couldn't figure out how to get help. And then after I got a lot of help for a long time is when I started to feel like I just knew how things worked in the big picture, especially with marketing and just what the business model of any yoga or pilates studio looks like.

Because I just knew how it worked, I didn't feel like I needed to ask a bunch of people. I just was able to know the answer based on how our systems worked.

Ben BeeriWhat was the moment like that you knew? It's like, hey, I've got this job. I'm going to leave. I'm going to open up my own aerial yoga studio.

Taylor OdoreI actually didn't have a last day or a last anything. I actually love my career that I went to school for. I'm a certified sign language interpreter, and I tried to hold on to that for a really long time. So I did get laid off from my main gig, which was the catalyst to open the studio. I remember I was teaching at a different studio and class started at ten and I double tapped my phone to make sure it was ten. And it was ten, and there's an email that said everyone's laid off, like, in six weeks. You got six weeks. You have no job. And I had a huge trip coming up too to Asia, and I was gonna be gone during the layoff too.

And I was like, okay, I have no job, and I taught that whole class. And in my head, was like, I have to make a really big decision right now. Am I going to keep working, or is this the sign that I should start looking for a lease? I already had the business plan and a lot of ideas, But that was the catalyst of like, I think I should do this. And then I did find ad hoc work in between the full time job, laying people off and opening the studio, which I kept until actually just the end of twenty twenty four.

And I was doing medical interpreting, which is my favorite. And then a lot of community college courses, which is fun because I've interpreted a lot of business and law courses and it's like you're auditing the class for free and I have to interpret it. So I'm like double understanding it, and I get access to all the homework. That was a huge plus. But I was interpreting at local community colleges and online universities. And then when the semester ended, I challenged myself to not pick up work in January and see how long I could go.

And I just built the net because I previously was paying my personal expenses through my job while I had the studio, which I'm grateful that I could do because that was a huge, huge benefit financially. But I just happened to naturally graduate from that after that assignment. It was also when I was filing taxes for the first calendar year of the business. I had all these ten ninety nine from interpreting assignments, and there's only a couple of bucks on each one of them, and it cost more money to file the paperwork half the time. It took so much time on the accountants' end, and I was like, I should just put all my eggs in one basket for a year.

And I'll promise myself that if I need to go back to work after this year, that's okay. But I don't need to, which is great.

Ben BeeriWhere did sign language interpretation

Taylor Odorecome from? Like, where did that originate from for you? I just took it in high school, and a lot of people take it in high school and love it, and they don't end up continuing. But my program had a really good foundation for people to go from high school to community college to university. And I loved it. I still love it so much. It's actually an amazing job. I tell anyone I know that has like coming of age kids or nieces or nephews that are like, we don't know what they're gonna do. I'm like, learn sign language because I loved that job.

So I'm not someone that's like, I open my business because I don't wanna work. I loved working. I just love aerial yoga more.

Ben BeeriWhat did what did you learn about the whole sign language and the whole community that you are interpreting for while you were doing that?

Taylor OdoreThe Deaf community is very unique. Very unique. Deaf people have a really strong community because they share a language, and that's why you hear deaf community a lot. You don't hear blind community very often because two blind people can interact and not know the other one's blind having a conversation. But two deaf people do not have a conversation without knowing the other one's deaf, if that makes sense. And deaf people have more shared lived experiences with other deaf people than they do of other types of disabilities or cultures.

And when you're deaf, you cannot hear by definition. So that makes it difficult to connect with people that aren't open to being creative with how they communicate with you. So they are just more drawn to each other in that way. Just like you see people you know, we're in Orange County, we have pockets of the Vietnamese community that lives in areas that speaks Vietnamese predominantly, and even all the signs are in Vietnamese, like in Westminster. That's because language is directly tied to culture, and they're with each other so much, they're assimilating, and then they end up having shared behaviors and shame values.

And my bachelor's degree is actually in Deaf culture specifically, so it's about Deaf people socioeconomically. And then I have a separate certification in the interpreting part of it, which is just language, but they're very closely tied.

Ben BeeriIt's interesting because I know nowadays with technology, there's a few more ways you can communicate. Could put your phone out of your pocket, you could type something up. Yeah, technology is huge for deaf people. Yeah, remember when I was younger, I would try to communicate with somebody who was hard of hearing and I would have to write something down for them to read. And then they would either try to speak something to me or write something down to me. I never spoke sign language or understood how to, like, interpret it. But it's interesting to see the different barriers of communication and to be able to bridge that.

Taylor OdoreYeah. It just sounds like something very, like, interesting to where it's like you're making an impact on somebody's life. Yes. So I love the work. Just the nature of the work was something that came naturally to me and I found interesting. But like you're saying, it does really leave a really good impact on people. And it's a job that is very understaffed as well. So, not very many people are hearing and are fluent enough in sign language to interpret, especially medical assignments. So, we don't use the word help because it can be overused. But if you are the difference between a deaf person understanding their doctor's appointment when they leave or not really knowing the diagnosis when they leave, like, that's a huge, huge deal. What's the process of learning sign language like?

I learned sign language just in high school to be conversational ly fluid. And then community college was set up to be ready for work, not necessarily for medical or legal assignments. But community college years was where we were getting more into the translation part of it because anyone that's bilingual knows that being fluent in a language is very different than translating or interpreting. Which is why with any language, even spoken languages, if you bring your mom that speaks Vietnamese to a doctor's appointment, they usually do not want you to translate. For the mom, they want to have a professional third party come in and translate because it's just so different. And you might not know how to say these medical terms in that language. You just know conversational language. And then university was where we got a little deeper into the mostly medical stuff. And where do you carry that passion forward today?

I am still really involved with the Deaf community. I have a lot of friends that are Deaf. I'm still really close with interpreting friends. I'm going an interpreting friend from college's wedding here pretty soon. And I'm still really involved in all of our groups on Facebook. I have a lot of group chats. If I see a deaf person in public, I go straight to them. And I'm like, Oh my goodness, I'm an interpreter. It's so fun to see you. And people think that they've never met a Deaf person or there's not very many Deaf people. But it's because you don't know someone's Deaf just by looking at them. I swear to God, when you're in public, there's Deaf people all the time. And I know who the deaf people are because there's only so many and I've worked with them.

Not as much here, but when I lived in Seattle I felt like I could not leave my house without seeing a deaf client. They were everywhere. It was like the grocery store, it was everywhere. But to the naked eye, wouldn't even know that person is deaf. Then I'm like, Oh, that's a deaf person from work. And then I always do I still have notifications on for work. And if I were to get a notification that was an emergency that I could take or a patient that I've already met that I work with really well, I would still take the job. And I am still fluent in sign language.

I'm very much still open minded to working and being part of that community. It's just not something that I necessarily need to do full time right now. That's awesome. That's awesome. And giving back and being able to do that and being able to help people. You were talking about people sharing commonalities,

Ben Beeriwhether it's like a challenge or wanting to transform themselves in yoga or being a part of a Deaf community. What is it to you about sharing different commonalities that make up a community?

Taylor OdoreI love talking about my own shared experiences with people. I love especially the internet, the rise of the internet, being able to talk about whatever shared experience we have with people on Instagram and TikTok, and especially other studio owners, like I shared earlier. I felt like I was screaming into the void. I needed so much help, but I had no idea what to do. Finding the corner of the internet that had the answers and the nice people that were willing to help. Right now, I can't tell you how many studio owners I have in group chats where we just send each other voice notes all day, helping each other with things, sending each other screenshots and Canva templates, just like overly helping each other out of our hearts. But when you do need something, you've definitely paid your dues to where if somebody can throw you a bone, then they're more than willing to.

Ben BeeriAnd you talk about this community of like business owners and studio owners. And where do you see that heading over the next few years as more people continue to open up these different studios and what tools are available to them to open up these studios and be able to stay in business and have a viable business?

Taylor OdoreYeah, I think yoga and pilates studio owners have a lot in common with almost any service based business if you look at the, like, really, really core stuff. But specifically for yoga and Pilates studio owners, I think we are gonna keep seeing a lot of studios open, especially Pilates, especially mat Pilates. It is a very it's not as expensive to open a mat Pilates studio as it is hot yoga or reformer Pilates. Definitely not aerial yoga because the rigging situation is very cost prohibitive. But I invite people, especially yoga and Pilates teachers, when they do see a studio opening, whether it's really, really close or just anywhere online or in a driving distance of them.

I noticed a lot of studio owners feel like there's another place where people can go work out. That's not my business. And that can stress them out. But once you start doing really well, when you get the help you need, you'll see that you actually get excited when you see that. Like, I'm a total dork in the Chamber of Commerce and everything anyways. But when I see a new any service based business, really, but especially some sort of workout place, I get so excited. I message them on Instagram. I'm like, Who owns this place? Who's the manager? I'm going to come take a class. I'd love to see you. What's working for you? What's your product like? Where did you find your teachers?

Anytime somebody messages me and asks me for a question, I answer it. I will send them exactly the template or the document that I used. And I just get so excited when other studios open because I love having a relationship with people that are living the same thing that I'm living, which is running a yoga or pilates studio.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. And you're talking about having that passion for the other studio owners and growing their business and succeeding and encouraging them. And that's something that's led you to opening up your own consultancy and trying to help other studio owners kind of grow and level up. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, I had already been helping people online

Taylor Odorewithout titling it consulting necessarily. I've done quite a few rounds of different group coaching containers. And I lived for those calls. I would get so excited to be on a Zoom call with other studio owners and every question they had, I just jumped to answer for them. Or if I had the same question, was really excited for whoever was hosting the call to help and answer. And I just noticed these patterns of the same questions being asked. So that's where I did, like I said, kind of got over the hump of feeling like I couldn't make a decision without asking a bunch of people to understanding how things work on a bigger level and being able to answer questions for people.

And so I graduated from the most recent cohort of group coaching that I was doing. And then I told myself I was just going to take a break. Not that there's not still a ton of things for me to learn, and I'm definitely going to be in a lot more groups as a student soon. I have my eye on a couple. I just noticed that I got an even bigger influx of people reaching out to me. And I get a lot of messages on Instagram on my businesses account for the studio. Like, what are you doing? You are so busy and you're everywhere and you post multiple times a day. There's so many students in your studio and you have so many testimonials.

And what are you doing differently? Especially because everybody books directly through our website. We have an amazing product. You cannot have a thriving studio if your classes suck. You have to figure that out first before you come to me at least. Some people can help you with the product. Once you have the confidence that you have a perfect product and experience, then there's some really simple things you can do with your digital marketing to just be findable. Like if people are Googling, if somebody wakes up and says, I want to do yoga today. Today's the day. I don't know why, but I'm going do yoga. It's eight and I want to take a 09:30 somewhere and they Google yoga near me and you don't come up, they're never going to find you, at least not that day. And that's when there was that spark and you need to hit them when they have that spark.

And if you are not posting on social media or you don't have a really active social media account, then people are less likely to find you from being tagged or someone else sharing their picture. And then if somebody does find your website it looks like crap and there's not a call to action, then they cannot sign up for a class, especially if you send them to a third party booking website like a lot of places do. So there's so much best practices that look really simple on paper that are being repeated constantly.

But a lot of people just need someone to hold them accountable and work with them step by step. And it's also really important that they're done in a specific order because, for example, paid advertising. I love meta ads. When they're done correctly, they are a money tree. They're an investment. You put in X, you get XX. It's amazing. But if your website isn't in the place it should be and it's not set up correctly, you can't run a paid ad because you're going to send them somewhere that just doesn't work. So things do need to be done in layers. So you've got to sync everything up. Yes.

Ben BeeriAnd you're talking about people's booking process and booking directly with you. What is it about somebody booking directly with you that allows you to kind of keep the customer more?

Taylor OdoreWhen people book directly through your website, then you do get their name, email, and phone number if they opt in, which they don't have to. But when they do, you're able to send them one automation, so it tells them how to prepare for a class, which is also in the class description. Most people don't read that, even though you might think they do. It's also just important to shoot them a quick text like, Hey, remember to come to this address at this time and wear this. That goes a really long way.

And then if there's something happening at the studio or they have a milestone coming up or there's something with their account, you can get a hold of them to let them know and interact with them in between classes when you have their information, which is really important. So that's when you get the cookies. Yes. That's when you get Terrence Homemade Cookies. Let's go.

Ben BeeriAnd what about, like, all the third party apps people book through

Taylor Odoreto join the studio? Do you guys use that as well, or do you recommend that for studio owners? I don't recommend it, especially if you have a membership based business. So we've been off of it since, um, like, anything that ends in pass, like a class pass, gym pass, punch pass. There's a bunch of similar products out there. They are not a good fit if you're trying to get members because if you can get it for cheaper somewhere else, why would someone book with you? So I did accidentally very naively sign up as soon as my business opened. It was a very long and difficult process to get off of them because they don't want you to get off of them once you're signed up.

We've been off it for over a year and I can say our top line revenue went up significantly even in the first month without being on there because a lot of people think, due to the marketing from these companies that end in the past, they think that people are using that marketplace to look for studios and booking on there, which does happen. But usually, people will already find out that you exist. And instead of booking directly, they will look at a cheaper platform to get it at a discount and you cannot blame them. If you are cheaper somewhere else, why would someone pay full price? Right? So that's where you just have to make the decision if you want to be or you don't want to be. I don't want to be in some studios do want to be, and that's fine for them.

But a lot of studio owners think that that's where all of their clients are coming from. But that doesn't have to be true because your studio has a sign on whatever street it's on. And there's hundreds of thousands of people that live in that city. And you've already had thousands of customers and they have a network of friends and family. And you have a website and it's twenty twenty five. So you can code your website and put in best practices for search engine optimization so that when people look for yoga near me, you come up and then you can have a beautiful website with a call to action on the front page that goes to an intro offer that's a few weeks long. So people come into your studio directly, get the results they want and stick around, and you can totally circumvent that process as long as you have the right tools and it feels really good.

Ben BeeriOkay. So you've got all these customers coming in to your place directly through you rather than. That's the only way to book. Yeah. That's the only way to book. And then what's the experience like for a customer who comes in and aside from taking classes, is there anything else that's potentially offered for

Taylor Odorestudents or clients to partake in? So our classes, our weekly classes are fabulous, but we also offer retreats all over the world. My favorite venue right now is in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We're going there again in May. I also host teacher trainings if anyone's interested in learning how to teach aerial yoga, whether it is that Open Aerial or you have your own project going on. Always say OpenAerial wouldn't exist if I didn't go to someone else's teacher training. My retreat company wouldn't exist if I didn't go on other people's retreats.

Ben BeeriSo those are really important to me. So there's other ways for studios to make money aside from just offering packages of classes.

Taylor OdoreYes. Classes should cover overhead, and retreats and teacher trainings should be extra. They should be fun, and they should be profitable immediately if you're gonna add them. But if your group classes are not keeping the studio afloat, then I wouldn't recommend spending any energy on those yet. But they're good once you have a foundation for sure. What

Ben Beeriabout customer retention? Once you find, like people doing your other services, whether it be a teacher training or people going on a retreat, you find that you have a longer customer retention like lifeline with those customers?

Taylor OdoreYes. But it's kind of like a chicken or the egg situation because the type of student who signs up for teacher trainings and retreats, we usually see the same people take teacher training and do retreats and have unlimited memberships and take 30 classes a month. Part of me is because I'm just a big data nerd and I want to know the real reason why we do see higher retention for people who do retreats and teacher trainings, but it's probably because the type of student that does that is already just a total evangelist for your business anyways.

But it also gets people really excited about the retreat or the teacher training. For both retreats and teacher training, you want to take a lot of classes because you want to get the most out of teacher training, and you want to get fun pictures and videos on the trip in the jungle and the hammocks and feel good on the trip and be able to exercise multiple times a day. Then you go on the trip where you take the teacher training, and then you come back home, and you still want to go to the studio and see all the friends you made at the retreat or teacher training.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. Then what I imagine, I mean, you guys have all these hammocks and people are on the hammocks. I imagine you guys get some badass content.

Taylor OdoreYes. It is very easy to get beautiful content in our studio. We have perfect floor to ceiling windows full of natural light. The hammocks are ballerina slipper pink, and it is just palatial. It's beautiful.

Ben BeeriThat seems fun. So Taylor, so you started your business, you opened OpenArea when you were 25 years old. Not many people get to the point where they're willing to say, Hey, I'm jumping in with both feet into my entrepreneurial journey. What was that like? I can't imagine it was easy to start.

Taylor OdoreIt was incredibly difficult to start, especially a brick and mortar business. Oh, my goodness. When it comes down to the paperwork involved on signing a lease, large amounts of money, large amounts of risk, no safety net. That is really scary. But you cannot have the life you want if you don't do that. So I wake up every day grateful I did it. I feel that way with my studio rehab project right now, which is an online business is a different strategy opening and launching an online business, but it is worth it. And the classic saying of choose your hard.

If you don't open the business, life's going to be hard financially, lifestyle wise, you're not going to be where you want to be. And if you do open the business, it's going be even worse at the beginning financially and lifestyle wise. But you're investing into your future. And I've already seen that with OpenArial. And that's also why I get excited when someone shares with me, even if someone's like, I've always wanted my own studio, I take that really seriously because I had that happen. So if someone ever tells you that your idea doesn't sound like a good idea, or you're getting in over your head, they probably just haven't had their own success yet. But when you tell an idea to someone that's been successful, they replay their journey and know it's possible. And they tell you, oh, yeah, you are going to open your studio. Let's do it. What do you have now? What's the next step?

When do you want it open? Are we looking at a year? Are we looking at six months? Let's do it. That is something that I'm really excited that I have in me when people, even just teachers, say they want a studio or somebody's in the middle of looking for a location. And something that is really common for my clients right now is that they don't have a commercial real estate agent. And that's something that I didn't know I needed either. I used to just call the number on the side of the building and not get a call back. And it took getting a really well known commercial real estate agent to get calls back and get tours with really big properties owned by the biggest property management companies in the world.

And you need someone to tell you that. And it's not your fault that you don't know. But there's so many places that you can find this information.

Ben BeeriWhat do you tell the people that say, Hey, oh my God, I want my own studio. Like, I want to take this stuff. Like, what is your advice to those people? I say, Let's do it! Show me what you've got. A lot of people already have

Taylor Odoreevery teacher has a logo and colors in their head, which is really fun to get excited about, but again, it's not what actually builds the business. It's important to do a lot of research before you make any big decisions, before you spend any large amounts of money. There's a clip by Alex Hormozi that I really like that talks about how he spent a large amount of money on going to a mastermind for gym owners before he opened a gym. And he was the only one that showed up and didn't have a gym. And you would think that was silly, but he was the most strategic person in that room because he was gonna learn all the pain points and all the mistakes that these people that already opened have, and he was gonna open a gym with less mistakes, not no mistakes, but significantly less.

So that's where I think it comes in handy to even if recently somebody reached out to me and told me that they want a studio one day. They have absolutely no plans yet, but it's a twinkle in their eye. And they asked me where they should start. And I said, these are my favorite accounts of people that do just what I do consulting. They make content about owning yoga and pilates studios. Just start following them and just start kind of seeing what themes come up There are different thought worlds of membership versus class packages versus only have one product versus have a little bit of everything and have 12 classes a day or have three classes a day. Have a target market, sell to everybody. Figure out what thought schools you want to subscribe to early on so you know who your target market is before you open.

You're going to save so much time and money by not making those mistakes if you just very early to start consuming people's content who have already done what you want to do.

Ben BeeriA smart from their person mistakes. A wise person learns from other people's mistakes. Yes,

Taylor Odore100%. And the information is out there.

Ben BeeriMean, nowadays, a lot of information's out there. Especially with the internet, ChatGPT, for sure. And you've got all these different people on their entrepreneurial journeys that have failed and have had things not work for them. And

Taylor Odorethen they go and they bounce back, and there's something they can succeed at. And you could go and see the different stuff that they have to say about what worked and what didn't work. And then how do you piece it together to kind of put your own story together? Those stories really inspire me. Alex Formosie, again, one of my favorites. His first gym was actually in Huntington Beach, and I always love to remind myself that when things get hard. But he has incredible stories of even after he had six gems and all these millions of dollars in top line revenue, he had some horrible things happen to him that were not his fault that wiped him out. And he had to start from scratch and open new things and finance things and go from having money to not having any capital for the business.

And when I read that, I'm like, I mean, God, I hope to God I never go through something like that. But it makes me before something like that, hopefully again never happens to me but if it were to, I can sit here now and be like, Other people have figured it out. I also have a safety net. I have a great skill that I could get a job tomorrow. I could go back to work tomorrow if I need to. But knowing that a lot of people think starting a business is like you start the business and it skyrockets. There are some really hard things that happen.

Especially with the brick and mortar business, it feels like every couple of weeks we have something crazy, something that just has to do with the building or something's broken, needs to be fixed, the lease says that the air con is my responsibility. I don't own the air con. I'm renting this. Why do I need to replace it? Things like that. So every time you get a win, it's important to be grateful for what you have and make sure that you're giving yourself the credit you deserve. But it's really important to not be too emotional as an entrepreneur because if I got too excited about my wins, I'm going to get really upset about the lows.

And if you get too upset about the lows, you're going to feel like your overall feeling is going to be closer to a low, if that makes sense. So don't want to get too cocky too quick with the highs. You want to find how to always come back and self regulate. I know the feeling I get in my chest when I get bad news, I find out something broke, have to replace it, it's expensive, or someone's schedule needs to change. And instead of letting it bother me, just like getting myself to not feel that feeling before I react and just move forward and fix it and build a system so that next time this happens, I know exactly what to do.

Ben BeeriIt's interesting because emotionally, the lows have a higher impact. Yes. It's like we don't really remember or take to heart like our wins. But when something happens and we just it hits us and we're losing or we get knocked down, that sits with us. And, obviously, we try to learn from that. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. But those lows really have a very large impact on you emotionally, and you can take a lot of lows Mhmm. And make up for them with, like, one win. Yeah. Like, I mean, it's like you can take all these different things that have happened to you that just did not work, And one win can wipe it all out. So that's a really interesting thing is when things aren't going your way is how many times can you get back up and what is your next step of action? Because the only thing that really matters is how you move forward and what your

Taylor Odorenext actionable step is when something is not going your way. Yeah. And a lot of studio owners and even instructors are feeling that right now. This we just got over the heat of summer, and that's going to be the slowest and lowest attendance time for studios. And if you're membership based, it doesn't really matter because people still have memberships. They use them slightly less, but they'll be back in the fall. If you do not have a membership base or people are booking on third parties, you're going to see a huge drop in attendance.

And that makes people feel self conscious from their ego because studio owners and instructors both feel like small classes means that classes are bad and people aren't coming back or they're somewhere else. And that's not true. It's not between you. There's a quote by one of my favorite consultants. It's usually between you sleeping in or watching Netflix is usually what it is if people are already going to your studio. So, this season is where I saw a lot of my friends and clients be really sad about the attendance in the studios, even though everyone's dealing with it. Totally fine.

We have to remember not to too cocky in January when everything's waitlisted. Because it's not going to be waitlisted all year. How you treat those new clients and how you retain them is going to see how big of a dip you see next summer, how many people still have their membership next summer. And it's just so important to look at things and find the averages instead of looking at these anomalies of really low attendance in the summer and really high attendance in the winter

Ben Beeriand figure out if your average is where you want your average to be. It's definitely good to learn the cycles of all the different business. Like, for us, like So unique. We we in our sports memorabilia business, it's like a lot of our sales come in November and December. For gifts for holidays? People are buying gifts for holidays. Cool. And but all of a sudden, it's like, hey, June, July, August, people are on vacation. It's Yeah. Not really basketball season. It's not really football season. Yeah. Some people buy baseball stuff.

Celebrities are hot when they're hot.

Taylor OdoreBut And as a business owner, you have to when you're making more revenue in those months, you have to make sure it doesn't mean you let your expenses get higher or you spend it. Well, you have to plan for just knowing what the twelve month calendar

Ben Beerilooks like and to ensure that everybody is good. I mean, obviously, no business owner can ever miss a rent payment or a payroll payment or different other bills that need to be paid that are like fixed expenses. And then how do you learn that cycle? And then how do you implement different things during the downtimes that help build you during the, like, the good times where it's time to go on offense and it's time to continue to build and not only build, but build more momentum. Like in your yoga classes, like when it's busy in January and classes are waitlisted, it's like maybe time to add another class or two and just make things more open for more people to

Taylor Odorecome in and experience what you have going on. Yeah. We see a lot of studio owners start bigger projects in the summer because the studio might have a lower capacity, less classes, and less students. So on the admin side, they're seeing a little bit more room to redo their website or start paid ads. That time of year is really good where they have that room. And there's a saying called when there's a storm, fishermen make their nets. They don't complain that there's they can't go out in the boat. They get really prepared when the store clears up, and they're ready to go on the boat so they're prepared.

Ben BeeriYeah. And and that goes for anything in life. I mean, you just go out and you're ready. I mean, it's almost like taking a vacation and resetting. And it's like by the time you are back, you are ready to hit the ground running into your regular life. And it's almost like I think we all as people could benefit from finding the balance of, hey, how do we take the slow times to, like, have gratitude for those slow times and appreciate the time to kind of reset and recharge ourselves and come back in with momentum once we start back up and things are going well and things are going strong and just hit the ground running? So many of us get discouraged by our lows or when things are slow or when there is an opportunity to recharge.

Yeah. And it's like it's almost time to like, hey, I have a chance to recharge here. Yeah. Let's go. I mean, it's not like, I mean, we recharge our iPhones every night. I mean, you can't let your iPhone get to 0%. Otherwise, you won't be able to use your phone.

Taylor OdoreI could definitely be better at that. I, especially this particular season of my life, I am just overworking. All I want to do is sit on my computer. I have so many projects, and I think I could benefit from some rest. And my time with you yesterday was actually really good for me because otherwise I would have been on my computer all day. So thank you. There we go. Yeah. No, it's good to find good to find a certain level of

Ben Beeribalance within things. But also, when you hit that workflow and you're catching momentum You got to take advantage of it. Yeah. Get that every day as an entrepreneur. Like, are certain days where you wake up and you're like, I gotta show up, but I'm really only at 50 or 60% capacity. And Mhmm. And there are those days where you catch your, like, 110% workflow. It's like time to put in that

Taylor Odoretwelve to eighteen hour day and, like, just keep pounding and keep going and really just move the needle forward. Yeah. And that's what I've been saying. It's been happening to me the last few weeks. I've I've always been really productive and efficient, but I usually am still, like, off my computer by five or six. So the last few weeks, I just have found myself not getting off my computer until very, very, very late at night and staying up much later than I'd like to. But I know it's going to be worth it. I'm building something worth it. That's awesome. That's awesome. And what are you currently looking at? Like, what's

Ben Beeriwhat's the five year Taylor vision?

Taylor OdoreIn five years, I would love to see Open Ariel has a five year lease, so we would be on our second lease in Huntington Beach. And we would have even more classes, more members, maybe more kids classes. Right now, have one kids program, and it's been full. And I'd like for it to be full for longer before I commit to more. And I'd love to expand my teacher training program as well. And as far as studio rehab goes, I can't wait to see how big my community is there. I have private groups for us on Facebook.

I have group coaching calls that you can be on every week. I have smaller courses for people that just want a peek at what it would be like to start a studio. And then I have resources for people that already have studios that need help with specific things. I'm really excited to see how big that community is in five years.

Ben BeeriSo it sounds like a little bit of expansion and not A lot of expansion. Not not not only some expansion, but also, like, helping others and helping others grow and trying to give back. Yeah. And it is so fun. It feels so natural for me to make content for Studio Rehab. I

Taylor Odoreall day, I have half a dozen studio owners that were pen pals, and we just send each other voice notes all day about the same stuff. So, I just decided to start recording myself thinking about the stuff I was already talking about or just posting the videos I'm already sending people when they DM me and ask me for help with something. Today, I posted a post about intro offer conversion rates. It was the real data for my real business, and it showed this is what I used to do, and this is what I do now, and it works better.

Why wouldn't I give that to other people? It's so fun.

Ben BeeriIt's interesting because a lot of us view people that are in a similar industry as competition. But at the end of the day, like, there are so many different factors that go into it. Person you're really competing against is yourself more than anything. Sure, there are some other people who are in a similar industry that can eat into a certain market share or market segments, but it's like most of the time, it's like they're more so colleagues rather than competitors. And it's like, how do we kind of reframe that and kind of, like, view them as, hey, these are my colleagues. Like, how can we all work together, how can we all grow together?

Taylor OdoreYeah. And I did not start that way. I definitely had seen other things play out at yoga and pilates studios that made me think that people were always against each other. And when I started my studio, I felt like I did have to keep things close to my chest. But that's something that people who aren't doing very well feel. But as soon as you're successful, most people are just giving away the farm because they know how hard it is to implement it. And if you're not going to implement it, then who cares? And if you are, you are going to do it anyways.

Me, I didn't invent aero yoga. I'm not the first one to own a yoga and pilates studio. But I'm really good at sharing aerial yoga, and I'm really good at sharing best practices with other studio owners. So when I took my first yoga teacher training or when I did my first high ticket consultant with another consultant, I was always going to have my own studio, and I was always going to help other people. And they were my first stepping stone, but it was always going to happen because I have it in me. And it's like, do you integrate

Ben Beericustomers and clients into more of the back end and business stuff that not only enhances their experience, but also helps you boost revenues as a business owner?

Taylor OdoreYeah. I love the business model of a yoga or pilates studio because you have no cost of goods sold.

Ben BeeriAnd

Taylor Odorethere's payroll and overhead or payroll and rent as overhead. And you just put as many people in there that you can fit. And then you look at class utilization. And when it comes to physical products that have a cost of goods sold is where it gets so much more complicated. And a lot of studios can make that decision where their core offer, which is their weekly classes and memberships, where they want them to. And instead of going my route with retreats and teacher training, more services, some of them do go for full retail. They have a whole Lululemon merchandising contract, or they have a fridge buy smart water Coca Cola, and smart water Coca Cola refills it for them every week.

And that's an arm of revenue for them. We have snacks and drinks just because people do get hungry and thirsty when they're at our studio. It definitely is not necessarily a revenue producing arm of our business largely, but some people love selling Pilates grip socks too a lot of studios make a killing on those but I find the most interest in just

Ben Beeripushing as many people into our classes as I can Yeah. No, that's fun. And at the end of the day, you want to get people to come and patronize your business. But I think the toughest thing is to get the customer right off the bat. And then once the customer is willing to be your customer, what other things are they willing to purchaseexperience when it comes

Taylor Odoreto your business? Yeah. Or what are they already using or needing? There's a lot of consultants that help people put merchandising retail products into their businesses. Their justification is, and this has been pitched to me before, every student that comes into your studio is wearing leggings and a sports bra under her shirt, and Pilates grip socks and has a yoga mat. And you don't sell any of those things. But she had to buy them from someone else before she came to your business. Why don't you sell them? And again, that's just not a project that I want to take on. But if I wanted to, it's very smart. Yeah. And it's interesting because at the end of the day, you get to be the face of your business and people want to buy something from people that they know. And

Ben Beerionce somebody is willing to buy something from you, they're often willing to buy a lot of other things from you as well. So it just becomes kind of interesting to see is like, hey, where can we service the customer? Where can you adopt the mentality of, hey, sure, you're a business, you're running a business, you obviously want to generate revenue, but it's like, what can I do to make my customer experiences centric and convenient as possible for them? I want them to be able to buy a water and a snack and a shirt and a bra and leggings and a mat. I want them to be able to have the option to get all this stuff. Right. Now, again, sometimes it's not worth you getting into from a business standpoint or taking back stock or owning an inventory Right. Stuff.

We know a lot about being in the inventory business. Right. Definitely, uh, adds up being into stuff upfront. But it's interesting once you have that customer base, what they are willing to support you on, what sometimes things are what they're not as willing or inclined to get and

Taylor Odorewhat the different balances are. Yeah, I know. I noticed a lot of ladies were coming in with an energy drink in their hand. So I got a merchandising fridge and put my favorite energy drinks in there thinking instead of buying one on the gas station on the way here, running in the traffic, adding five minutes to your commute, What if you just knew that your favorite energy drink was always ice cold already at the studio, and you could open it up right before class and have it during class? That's why I put that there. Yeah, and I love that because that really helps improve

Ben Beerithe customer experience from a convenience standpoint. It's not even about making revenue at that point. It's about, hey. Yeah. How can I how can I have this customer come into my studio and just have as convenient an experience as possible and not have to spend the extra time? Because all of sudden, I'm stopping at a gas station and grabbing an energy drink on the way to your studio. I can take them extra time. Maybe they don't necessarily have the extra time on that day. Maybe on a certain day where they can't go and get that energy drink, they don't want to come and take a class because they can't have that full experience of having their drink and their class. Yeah,

Taylor Odore100%. Just like with any hot yoga studio, they have all the towels and the mats. With cycling, you can rent shoes and a towel. It's really important.

Ben BeeriOr when you go to the go kart racing, they give you those helmets. You're ready to go. Definitely not bringing your own helmet. I don't think it's a bad idea if you go enough. You go, you get your own helmet. They're probably more comfortable. So you just gotta find the go kart that actually runs quickly because then you can beat everyone. That sounds fun. But, uh, yeah. No. It's it's interesting all the different businesses that there are to get into. Yeah. Are as an entrepreneur, are there any other businesses you've kind of had on your mind? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have a lot. So I had a business before OpenArial.

Taylor OdoreI had an agency for sign language interpreters. So I went to school here for interpreting, and then COVID happened. I lived in Seattle, and that was when I got my first big jobs as an interpreter. And in California, there's a lot of agencies where an interpreter or a business person opens an agency and calls it Interpreters Incorporated. And then doctors and lawyers and any business that needs an interpreter finds them online and schedules it, and they don't schedule the interpreter directly. And when I lived in Washington, the culture was like, immediately everyone works for government subsidized stuff, which was great because I did mostly medical and that worked for me. But I kind of got hip to the fact that if you're a receptionist at a dentist office and you get a deaf patient come in and says, if I don't have an interpreter, it's against the law. You need to procure an interpreter in the next hour. You're just going to Google it. So I just made a website. I called it MetaTerp.

And that was actually a whole LLC and everything and had a software. And it would schedule it was basically just me. But our website looks like it was a whole agency. And if there was a gig I couldn't do, I referred it to my friends. And that was only possible in Washington. It's not possible here because of the culture of the private versus public stuff. But if I did want to live in Seattle, which I prefer to live in Newport right now, but if I did want to live in Seattle one day, I would. Or if there's any interpreters that live in Seattle right now that want to try that, that worked for me. I love that.

And then my favorite idea is I hate putting gas in my car. I do not want to put gas in my car by myself as a young lady, especially if it's dark or if it's raining. I guess that was more of an issue when I lived in a place where it rained a lot, got dark early. But I had the idea of the services that fill your car up at your house for you. And those are really popular in Dubai specifically. They just don't have a lot of physical gas stations, but they have a lot of people that drive. And I actually tried to use one of those services once and they actually told me they couldn't service me because my car is behind a gate and they don't do that it has to be parked on the street But I loved that idea for the longest time I was like, I'm gonna have all these trucks and we're gonna be filled with gasoline. And in the middle of the night, we're just gonna fill up everybody's car with gas and no one's ever gonna have to get gas again. That was one of my favorite ideas.

Ben BeeriIt's interesting because how do you go and take something to a mass scale of customers? It just, I mean, the bigger the problem you're solving, the more impact you're having on the world. And then obviously the more you get compensated for it. But from an impact standpoint, mean, you sit there and you think of, hey, Uber is like, we're just going to have this thing in the palm of your hands where you can call a car to come and pick you up anytime, any place, wherever you are. It's like all of a sudden, guess what? We don't have to call a taxi anymore. Yeah, they fix a huge problem.

Taylor OdoreAnd a lot of people, when they hear people that own businesses talk about owning their businesses and scaling, they do think it is about revenue. But like what you said, it's like, well, we really only end up getting paid in a way that's congruent to the problem we're solving. So as long as you are seriously trying to help people and solve their problem, as long as your business is set up correctly, then it will result in revenue that you deserve. But it's not as likely that if you have ill intentions that you would make the revenue that you're looking for. Uber is also my favorite example of earlier we were talking about collaborating and competing.

Uber and Lyft are both huge, successful companies that do the same thing. And most people have both apps on their phone, and they both employ tons of people and make tons of money. And they're both coexisting.

Ben BeeriYeah. No. And it's interesting because it's like you've got all these people building businesses, and it's like there is in many industries enough market share to go around. Obviously, Uber and Lyft, their best interest is to work together to uplift and expand the total addressable market of the people using the rideshare apps. Obviously, there are certain times they want to cut into each other's market share when they can. Sometimes they compete on prices. Sometimes they go on Lyft and Lyft is cheaper. Sometimes they go on Lyft is cheaper.

But you go and you see, but yeah, Uber could be more available at times. So it's like different companies have their different or certain wait times can be more or less depending on what you want or if you want the XL car or whatever. So but or the Uber Black, whatever you prefer. But you have at the end of the day, the best thing that they can both do is collaborate and work together to increase the total addressable market for the entire space.

Taylor OdoreAnd then whatever their market share is, their market share is. But if it's bigger, there's more to go around for that segment of the business. Yeah. And just the more people you can get on relying on that, I mean, have you ever been somewhere that doesn't have Uber? Did Mykonos? Was it hard to call a car in Mykonos?

Ben BeeriMykonos had cars. So that was simple enough over there. But there was when we were in Crete, I believe, you had to specifically like call, like taxi. Like get a phone number from reception at your hotel. And so it's also interesting to see how different countries have different infrastructures Yeah. That are developed different ways or, I mean, obviously, within a place like Greece, different islands have different infrastructures Yep. And are more developed or less developed. And it's interesting to see just all the technological breakthroughs that we've had here in The US over the last few years that allow us to do more. It's like, I remember when I was growing up, uh, and we were taking math classes at school, the teachers would always say, oh, you need to make sure to show your work.

It's not like you're going to have a calculator on you at all times when you're growing up. And I sit there and I think about that example pretty often now because it's like, Hello,

Taylor OdoreI literally have a calculator on me at all. Better than that. I asked chat GPT math problems. Like, I'll be like, What's this percent of that number? I'll voice note it, and it'll tell me. Yeah, better than a calculator. So guess what? To all the math teachers in fourth and fifth grade or whatever it was,

Ben BeeriI don't actually have to show my work. I could just punch it into a calculator and get my answer. And what that looks like right now is

Taylor Odoreprofessors and teachers a lot of them have very differing opinions on using AI. And this is something that they instilled to us for interpreting was it's impossible to cheat with interpreting because if someone tells you something and you know how to say it in the output language, regardless of how you pulled it off, you could do that at work. Whatever allowed you to figure out how to pull that off, replicate that at work. So if somebody has an assignment at school and they can use Chatuchupty to do the assignment, it's like, well, is that the assignment you're going to be getting to do as long as the quality works there and you're not copy and pasting and making it really obvious? Right. We've all seen that.

But if it can be a tool to help you at work, I think that's great.

Ben BeeriAnd they should be allowed to use it. The interesting thing is, is professors and teachers, they're wired to teach you how to stay within a box within a system that already exists because they're teaching to the masses. There can be 20 students in a class or in college or elementary school. Middle school's a little bit more. High school could be a little bit more. College classes could Right? Have they're teaching to the masses, and they're teaching you to fall within a system of, hey. I can teach this to everyone out of a book that tells me how to teach this.

But then you get the few people that wanna think outside the box, the entrepreneurs of the world, and all of a sudden, what they're thinking is usually viewed as right off the bat, hey, this is wrong. This is different. This is bad. And what it does do is it doesn't conform with what they're trying to teach you to fall into and do. So in that sense, they're right that it doesn't fit and doesn't work. But the most successful people you see in life are the free thinkers, the entrepreneurs who come up with their own things, their own ideas that are willing to take risk, that are willing to do the stuff that everybody calls them crazy for and not yeah. Implement things quickly. AI just came out. What can we do to use it? Take action. So the whole premise of you can't use AI to write this essay. It's like, well, AI can produce a better essay for me.

I'm concerned about the results as a business owner. I'm concerned about what are the results I can generate. And if it takes me longer to do a task and I don't do it as well, that's a losing proposition. Yeah, that's not an option. And it's like, it's really interesting to see how it will be going forward because a lot of the teachers are going to want to hold the students back from using AI to complete their work. But the reality of the situation is, is can they encourage use of AI to complete the project?

And then now all of a sudden, we've got better quality of work,

Taylor Odoreand that's really just going to advance society in the long term. It can also help with customer service. I'm not a fan of an AI chatbot. I would rather talk to real person still. And as a yoga studio owner, people are gonna talk to a real person when they contact me. But something that my CRM, my wallet software has been implementing is they have an AI churn notification, where if a student hasn't came in in more than one billing cycle or they were left on a wait list and a couple other factors, it will show on our dashboard like, hey, how about we reach out to this person and just make sure that they're okay? And, you know, a lot of people think that yoga and pilates studios or Planet Fitness is famous, for an example, is people think that we want you to be on contract, that you can't quit. It's not true. We want you to actually come in.

And one of the ways that AI can help us provide better customer service in that way is if someone's not using their membership is to just offer a downgrade. You're paying for unlimited, and you're only using four. We have a mini membership that's only four classes. I would rather you have that mini membership and stay for longer than not use your unlimited and feel like you didn't get your money's worth and quit. So I really like that. Walla's been implementing that for us. It's been helping me out quite a bit. No, that's cool. Because at the end of the day, the priority is customer satisfaction.

Ben BeeriSomebody's coming in and they're not coming in enough, they're not using their membership enough and they're overpaying for it, it's like that customer knows it. They know that and they're going to resent When they walk in, they resent what they're spending the money on for their membership. They don't feel like they're getting their money's worth and they will quit at the first opportunity or excuse that they have to quit. Yeah. But if they feel like they're getting their money's worth within their membership, they're satisfied, they're happy, and they're going to tell other people about it. Yeah. And they'll stay longer. So it's amazing. And reach their goals, especially for fitness. Reach their goals, 100%. No. And that's at the end of the day, we all have these different goals that we set for ourselves.

And where can we go to help reach those goals? Whether it's personal or business, fitness, whatever you're looking to do. And it's amazing that we can establish a place to help people reach their goals and transform not only physically, but mentally and who they are as a person. And that really ends up impacting the impact that they have on other people and the people that they talk to and interact with and come across in life. So I'm really excited for what you have going on right now Thank you. With OpenAerial, and I look forward to seeing the different expansions and all the different yoga studios you're going to help open and all the new OpenArea locations we're going to see over the next few years and just continue to create a great customer experience for everyone.

Taylor, I really enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you so much. And

Taylor Odorewhere can our listeners connect with you? They can find Open Aerial on Instagram and our website. Everything is Open Aerial or Open Aerial Yoga, pretty easy to find. Same with studio rehab, studiorehab.co

Ben Beeriis our website and our handle on all social media. That's amazing. That's amazing. And we'll throw that stuff in the description for you. I'm really glad you guys were able to join us on the authentic journey today. We had such a great conversation here with Taylor Odore, serial entrepreneur. And, yeah, if anything today resonated with you guys, we'd love for you guys to leave us a like, leave us a comment, share this episode with your friends. You guys can find us on Instagram at the authentic journey pod.

I'm your host, Ben Beeri. You guys can find me on Instagram at benbeeri. That's benbeeri. And we'll see you on the next episode of The Authentic Journey.