Delivering Happiness or The Wow of Teaching Yoga.

Recently I’ve read a very inspiring book by Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, about the growth and culture of the biggest and the most successful online shoe store. (Hold on, yoga and selling shoes have more in common than you think!) The book is called Delivering Happiness, A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.  It’s a great read for anyone trying to be an entrepreneur and working in the customer centered field. Yoga is a customer-centered service industry, since most of the studios and individual teachers are out there to provide a service and to make a living out of it. In his book, Tony outlines some of his personal and all of the official company core values that made Zappos a legend in the online retail industry and a very highly regarded company by the entire Human Resources community. Surprisingly, while reading Zappos core values, I couldn’t help myself but notice how most of the same values and principles apply to teaching yoga.

Here are some of the ones that resonated with me the most and some ways that I plan to implement them in my teaching (and would be very honored if someone else finds them useful in their yoga teaching business, too!):

The Wow Factor  

If you have ever ordered from Zappos, you probably have experiences Zappos  “Wow” factor. Customer Service is Zappos’s Wow. They provide free 24 hour shipping both ways. You can order shoes before going to sleep and wear them out to dinner the next day. It is pretty incredible. Zappos team  try to keep their customers happy and to pleasantly surprise each one of them, whatever it takes. In our modern world we are so used to getting things our way that getting a good quality product or service is not enough to make us stay on as a committed customer. We need something beyond good, we want to be wowed. Zappos did that and it worked, most of their customers return many times over.

A Question to Ponder: Do you wow your students?

Example of Implementing the Strategy: Strala Yoga offers $10 classes all day, every day, which is a big wow for most New Yorkers. Some other studios offer tea, free water, or a great community to wow theirs. 

Next Steps: As a private yoga instructor you can offer some free health tips, advice, emotional support, videos, podcast, etc. As long as it is something useful and not available anywhere else, it will make you students feel special. People like the VIP treatment, whether it is in a restaurant or a yoga studio.

My intention:  Do more things that show my commitment to my students beyond the assigned 1 hour and 20 minutes class. For me it will be writing and sharing my knowledge on Ayurveda. What can you do for you students?

In the next post I will explore the next principle/core value that can be applied to the yoga teaching business. Sing up for email updates to get a note from me when Delivering Happiness, Part 2 comes out!