Ready to hit the new year running and transform your studio business? In this episode, Chantelle and Michelle reveal the one strategy (plus a few bonus tips!) that can set you up for success in 2025. From the powerful Hedgehog Concept to stepping into your leadership role, this is the clarity and inspiration you’ve been waiting for.
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Chantelle Bruinsma (00:48)
Hello lovely ones, how are you? It’s Chantelle here. Welcome to your studio podcast and I’m here with my bestie, wifey, Michelle Hunter. Hi, how you doing friend?
Michelle Hunter (00:56)
I’m good and hi friends. It’s a good day today. We are, we’re up early. We’re ready to do this.
Chantelle Bruinsma (01:02)
we’re batching a whole bunch of podcasts. It was funny, we’re in Bali for Horizon House with a bunch of our clients and Ryan looked at me and they’re like, are you recording more than one podcast on one day? I was like, yes, have I taught you nothing? We batch everything here at Studio Evolution because we like space and time and freedom. And so yes, we’re gonna record five podcasts today, Michelle. It’s a good one.
Michelle Hunter (01:23)
We are on a roll, we’re on a roll.
And what we also love doing here at Studio Evolution is hearing from our awesome community of studio owners. And today we’re going to hear from one in particular who has a great question, Chantelle, and it reminds me, what would baby Chantelle do back in the day?
Chantelle Bruinsma (01:40)
I don’t know if that’s really the question we want to ask. I don’t know if we need to go back to that time in our 20s, right? I don’t think we need to go back there, do we? Do you want to go to those stories? Or should we talk about like what we will know now, what we know now that we would do?
Michelle Hunter (01:42)
And then…
No, what, yes. Yeah, that’s right. Right. Knowing what we know now. And, you know, it’s hindsight’s an incredible, incredible concept, right? It’s, it’s, but I think it’s the experiences that we have lived that really make us who we are. And even in the studio owner world, there’s so many stories and there’s so many experiences. and yeah, and there’s, so much we can learn from.
Chantelle Bruinsma (02:19)
So April’s left us a voicemail and we would love for you to leave us a voicemail too. So if you’d like to, in the show notes for today’s episode, there’s a link and you can go and just like send us a little voicemail, say howdy doody and ask a question that’s on your mind. So if you would like to do that, please jump and kind of do that after this episode. But right now let’s hear from the lovely April.
lovely so lovely thanks April and look you’ve made it through the first three and a half years so you have been in the wash yeah
Michelle Hunter (03:40)
my goodness. She’s a dream.
I was just to say, bravo. You know what I mean? And she’s saying, and her head’s above water and you know, and we love hearing from our art studios. They’re such a joy.
Chantelle Bruinsma (03:54)
Yeah. All right. So Michelle, so the question is, what do we know that we would go? Why are you giggling?
Michelle Hunter (04:04)
Cause it’s like, I’m gonna like, she’s like, what do you know? It’s like, let’s bring out the scroll.
Chantelle Bruinsma (04:09)
Well, that’s it, Michelle and I were talking about this before we started recording. It’s like we like, we’ve got bullet points after bullet. So strap yourselves in because we’ve got a lot of things to say about this topic, right? We really do.
Michelle Hunter (04:17)
Yeah, we’ve got a lot. We’ve got a lot. And I think Chantelle I think like, let’s start with the big one. And I think this, you know, what you’re about to talk about is really pivotal to who you are as a studio owner when you run a studio, you know, your identity, your values, everything that you represent. This concept is game changing.
Chantelle Bruinsma (04:42)
Yeah, it comes from my favorite book. You’ve probably heard me wax lyrical about it in the past. It’s called Good to Great. Why some companies make the leap and others don’t. Did notice that Michelle? I named our entire program after the tagline of this book. That’s how much I love it, right? Anyway, so there’s a model in this book. This book is full of gold, but there’s one thing I want to talk about because it really does answer your question and sums it up so concisely. Jim Collins, our guru, he sums it up and it’s called The Hedgehog Concept.
Michelle Hunter (04:47)
you
Thank
Chantelle Bruinsma (05:12)
And I think where a lot of studio owners go wrong and they live in the weeds for much longer than they need to comes down to this particular concept. And so I’m just going to teach it to you today, my friends. And so the Hedgehog concept is a Venn diagram. if you’re on a little walk and you’re in the bush and you’re listening along, imagine three interlocking circles, or I’m holding up a little picture of one today. In the first circle, you’re going to write
What you are passionate about What you care deeply what you is meaningful to you what like when you’re designing your studio I want you to bring your heart in more right bring that the passion of the mission that you are Embodying so being really clear on your mission clarifies everything The first thing we do when someone joins Studio Evolution is get really clear on totally upload of leveling their mission
And what this does is it kind of elevates you above the pack. There’s a lot of studios out there. You operate in a highly competitive industry, everyone, right? There’s competitors, there’s people doing similar things. Also just, you know, competition for dollars is tough. So the more that you’re able to clarify who you are, what you’re here to do, what you give through your mission, it just lets everyone else just kind of float away and you become the sole choice.
because it’s so appealing and magnetic what you’re about. So that’s the first thing, really understanding. You’re not here just to do art lessons, April. I’m sure it’s actually a lot more than that. There’s probably things that you really care about giving to your students and who you want them to grow into and what you are passionate about bringing into their lives. So when we start marketing from that position,
it changes from just the low level marketing you see come have a fun friendly kind of art class, right? And that’s essential. So the first circle is what you’re really passionate about. And it’s more than just classes, yeah? The second piece is really critical. And this is what are you the best at? And then you might think that those two like what are you passionate about? What are you the best at? But they’re kind of different. I wanna speak to the difference between those two.
What you’re the best at means the hardest thing that I think is for studio owners is there’s so much you can do. You guys are a talented bunch, right? You have got all the time and what you do, you do really well. So there’s a lot of people are going to come to you as a studio owner. you know what? I heard about this thing. Can you run this type of class or could you do this particular kind of workshop or could you do this or
Michelle Hunter (07:48)
I can wear all the hats, all the hats, all the hats.
Chantelle Bruinsma (08:05)
or have a teacher like, I’m really passionate about doing this type of program. And they’ll come to you with sparkly eyes. And you’ll go, because you’re a nice human person and you know, maybe have some people pleasing tendencies that a lot of studio owners have, right? You go like, sure, that sounds wonderful. I can see how much you’d love that. And then you create this whole other arm of the business and it ends up siphoning so much of your energy and your time. And it’s not quite in alignment with what actually you’re all about.
And so this particular, the second circle, what you are best at means simplification, eliminating all of the fluff. Literally, if you can distill everything down to its most, the smallest variant, right? The least number of programs you can run, the least number of pricing variations you can have, the least number of membership options, the least number of team, literally everything. The more you can distill it down just to the very best.
to the very cleanest, that is going to give you an enormous advantage because what slows businesses down as they grow is complexity. They need more communication, more training, more thinking, more decision making, less certainty, right? So the more complexity you have, the more this business of yours is going to require you to be there making the decisions. And it means you can’t be on a lilo having a margarita. Not okay, right Michelle?
Michelle Hunter (09:33)
Yeah, and that complexity feeds back from the backend to the frontend to the student experience to how you run your team. If you can keep it simplistic, it will change the whole experience from user experience to the backend.
Chantelle Bruinsma (09:48)
You got it, friend. mean, so making those big decisions to reduce the moving parts, it’s kind of like every program you have in your studio needs to be marketed. And you’ve got to train teachers who are specialized in that particular program. needs communication about those programs. It’s got to like, you know, curriculum lesson planning. The more elements that you have, it also means on the timetable, there’s going to be more different options for people to enroll in classes.
And because there’s more options, you’ve got to promote the classes to get the capacity in order to make the profit. You with me? So the more, the number of different programs you have in your timetable, it means you’ve got to work a hell of a lot harder in terms of capacity. And that means it’s going to be harder for you to make money. So being what you’re best at means like, okay, which program do you have right now that is, it just sings and it just creates an unbelievable experience for the students. and
It’s easy to run, people love it. There’s a strong sense of progression that moves people through. It’s really great for retention. It’s easy and it works, right? We just want programs that does that. you know, if you can get down to maybe five different levels, different programs in your business, you’re gonna do really well because we’re gonna be able to consolidate classes for capacity and make more profit. Hooray.
Michelle Hunter (11:09)
Okay, last one, Chantelle. And it’s one some of us find confronting as studio owners, but some of us love it.
Chantelle Bruinsma (11:18)
Yeah, we do. We do. It’s money. It’s money. It’s talking about money. And as a studio owner, the third circle is what in Jim calls it, what drives your financial engine. I call it what makes you money. Just keep it really simple. So where do you make money in the business and understanding that and making decisions based on financially what’s going to serve you best. So that comes down to a bunch of different things.
Michelle Hunter (11:24)
Mm.
Chantelle Bruinsma (11:46)
it comes down to thinking about hiring and like how you can deliver the experiences for the most affordable wage while still keeping the absolute top quality, right? Like understanding if I did it this, if I hired these types of people versus if I did these types of people, like how that would play out. It comes to when we’re marketing, which program we’re going to really put the front foot on with marketing because that program sells easily and is very profitable. It’s like knowing
knowing how to select and put the energy into that which is going to grow the business. It also means about charging appropriately, like, you know, we’ve got to charge this amount so we can hire enough team to support you. So those three things come together. This is how it comes together and looks. What are you passionate about? What are you the best at and what makes you money? And when you understand and stay
in those three circles every month of every year. we’re getting a bit diluted here. we’re being a bit distracted. We’re putting all of our focus into this huge workshop and we’re not actually focusing on our capacity. The more you just keep coming back to those three circles, where’s our mission? How are we living our mission? How are we keeping really clean on just doing what we’re best at? And how is this really making sure that we’re making money? You keep answering those three questions, you’re gonna do really well. You’re gonna do really well.
Michelle Hunter (13:12)
And even having it visually mapped and on the wall as a reminder, so helpful, so helpful to bring back. Always to look through the lens of how you’re making decisions through those three circles is very helpful.
Chantelle Bruinsma (13:26)
Yeah and the reason it’s called the Hedgehog Concept you might be wondering why is it called the hedgehog it’s a bit random right it’s based on a story of a fox and a hedgehog and the fox is fast and speedy right and he’s going over here and like look over here there’s a little bunny look over here there’s a little kind of little rodent over here look over here look sunshine it’s rainbows and they just this shiny object syndrome fox constantly distracted short-term thinking moving here doing this going there here here here here here
versus the hedgehog, incredibly slow, incredibly methodical, incredibly focused, just going here. I’m just going to go here. When we’re about, you know, April you’re three and a half years in, and we want you to have a flourishing career as a studio owner and make a lot of money and have a life that you really love. And that’s going to come from building a really rock solid business and…
honing your aptitude for making really strong decisions about the systems and teams, financially, the programs, retention, that’s gonna solidify that trajectory of your business and give you the grounding you need so you can have a life is the really big thing. Michelle, I wanna throw it back to you. What else is on your mind, like outside of the Hedgehog Concept that if you were to kind of say like, this is important for a studio owner to really grasp?
Michelle Hunter (14:51)
You know, it’s one that I see can sometimes, you know, decimate a studio if it’s not on top of sooner and you can really leave it for a long time. And that is getting on top of your taxes and finding a good bookkeeper. you know, the, growth to when you need to be on top of this can be quite quick and we can focus so much on growing the studio and being in the studio and the culture. It is so important. Make sure you’re dialed in with a bookkeeper, from the get go.
Chantelle Bruinsma (15:18)
Hmm.
Michelle Hunter (15:20)
you know, to support your growth and get disciplined into the habit of putting the money aside for the tax into a separate bank account. It’s crucial. It’s crucial.
Chantelle Bruinsma (15:31)
We’ve seen it break a lot of studio owners, huh? It’s hard.
Michelle Hunter (15:32)
it’s and it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking because we are not, you know, lot of studio owners have so much passion and, we’re not all accountants, you know, at heart so that we’re not thinking of these things in the forefront when we’re trying to create these amazing experience for our students. So if we could just keep that in mind, it really will take some of that that stress out when it comes to tax time. Chantelle, what about you? What about team? What about team? What’s some things that you
Chantelle Bruinsma (15:42)
No.
Love it.
Yeah, there’s one other thing that really, know, three and a half years in April, and for those of you kind of like looking at going to this next level, it’s to really know your role and to know what your role is best, where your time is best invested and preserve that, right? The larger the business grows, like when you start, you know everyone, everyone knows you, and you are the centre of the wheel.
Michelle Hunter (16:11)
Hmm.
Chantelle Bruinsma (16:28)
and everyone kind of comes back to check in, are you happy with this? Happy, happy, happy. Over time as the business grows, that’s going to need to evolve, right? Because you want to sleep and that’s going to be important. So the sooner that you can start to play with your relationship with doing all the things and maybe bringing on additional people into a place where, you know, they could support to make some decisions that you trust them, that people could go to them and get the information they need. That’s really important.
So making sure that you’ve got a team around you, that you’re not the only kind of one holding this all together is really strong for the stability. And I know it’s kind of like it’s an insurance policy, right? To make sure that things can kind of keep going really well. In order to do that, this is a kind of intersecting point. Charge high, just, and raise your prices every bloody year, right? If I can give you one bit advice.
raise your prices every bloody year because if you don’t and you’re like I’m a bit nervous about raising my prices then what happens is that everyone else is raising around you and you’ve kind of been left off and then you’ve got to really do some massive price corrections to get back in a good place and that’s that scary so
Michelle Hunter (17:45)
That is scary.
Chantelle Bruinsma (17:46)
The best thing you can do is do a small increment every single year. Your clients will get used to it. They’ll expect it. They’re not gonna blink an eye. it’s just happening again. It’s not scary. It’s just kind of, you know, small bits. That is essential. And the more you charge high, the more people perceive you as a place that’s really your destination, the more your marketing will actually work and you’ll have the money to pay for more team. So again, like if I could give you any advice, raise your prices and don’t be afraid to go top market.
Michelle Hunter (18:14)
Yep. Yep. One that I found so game-changing and it’s something that, you know, we said the beginning of this podcast we practice, but batching is really important. And I think it’s something that you can get really good at and it’s not just, in planning or admin, like there’s a real opportunity for studio owners to be batching their socials and their marketing and to really be freeing a lot, a lot of their mental load. cause let’s, let’s get real not.
A lot of us love marketing, studio owners love marketing and they think it’s quite hard. So if you can batch it, it will just create so much more space.
Chantelle Bruinsma (18:52)
What does that mean? What do you mean by that? Yeah.
Michelle Hunter (18:54)
By batching?
Well, batching is really getting intentional about your marketing and looking at it at a project basis of actually planning, implementing it, and then it’s done. You know, the last thing you want to be doing with marketing is sitting down at computer every day and then starting it and then getting a little bit, getting distracted, getting disheartened. But, you know, I think we find Chantelle when we work, when we actually set some real intentional time to work on an actual big project, and especially when it’s got to do with marketing.
You can give it the energy it needs, the time and the space, and you’ll actually get it done quicker and do such an amazing job when you give it the time it deserves. And then it’s done. That’s what we mean by batching. do it in, you know, one big time session and we get as much done as possible. And this might be something simple as planning all the marketing for your, your enrolment for the new season, you know, your re-enrolment, like batching all the posts, all the emails, all the structure, all the comms, you know, all the automated email sequences, getting it.
Chantelle Bruinsma (19:44)
Mm.
Michelle Hunter (19:53)
done in its full project. So if that’s like the enrolment, you want to get everything done for that enrolment, intake. If you’ve got, like a bring a friend week or a special campaign that you’re doing, getting all of the comms, all of the marketing dialed out for that one project and getting implemented. And then it’s just follow up when the leads start flowing in. So that’s when we mean when we’re batching. We want it done to its full extent in a one session period.
Chantelle Bruinsma (20:14)
Hmm.
Yeah, that, know, like designing in the way that next year when that same event comes around, you’ve got it all documented, you’ve got it all prepped, you can just kind of press, press play, we’re not reinventing the wheel. That’s what slows a lot of studio owners down. And batching is a relationship again with time, having, you know, good chunks of time to be working on the business and not just working in the business and, you know, not just being in your inbox, but actually working on the things that are going to really move the needle and
Michelle Hunter (20:26)
all there.
Yeah.
Yep.
Chantelle Bruinsma (20:47)
I know, April, you asked us like one thing and we’ve given you 42, but you can, like there’s a lot to say. And one thing I do want to say that is, it’s really important is there is a relationship between the amount of teaching you’re doing every single week and the growth of your business. So the studio owners who come into Studio Evolution, they work with us and they’re teaching 25, 30, 40 plus hours per week.
The teaching, that amount of energy that is going into teaching is taking your energy away from growing the business. And what we find is one of the first things we work on when we start working in Studio Evolution with our clients is we’re setting goals for reducing their teaching hours. And there’s gonna be the clients of ours who just kind of go like, but I love teaching. It’s my joy, it’s my passion. It is. We’re not taking it away from you. We’re not taking that away from you. You will always be a teacher and.
Michelle Hunter (21:36)
Yeah.
No.
Chantelle Bruinsma (21:47)
You also find maybe that maybe the business side was overwhelming and stressful and you didn’t know where to start and you didn’t have the confidence to be really, you know, really embracing your financials. So you kind of, it’s easy to hide in teaching because it’s your comfort zone, right? But if you really want to grow the business, one of the most important things that we can do is reduce your teaching hours. My rule of thumb is I would like for you to be teaching no more than about
Michelle Hunter (22:01)
Yep. Yep.
Chantelle Bruinsma (22:16)
10 hours per week on two consecutive days. I have some big clarifying considerations around that. Here’s why, because if you taught Monday, Tuesday, let’s just say, you do Thursday, Friday, that gives you three days for your brain to go into business mode and to go into thinking about how we’re gonna be really growing the business. It’s hard, you guys know this, right? It’s hard when you’ve been doing a really good juicy project, you’re doing some marketing, you’re doing some retention planning, and then you gotta go teach. You gotta take off that hat, shift hats, and.
It takes an like where was I again? And you’ve lost that momentum. When you’re teaching 10 hours a week, two five hour days, you have energy, the business benefits and it is transformative. So again, we need to charge high, have team on board from the beginning so that you have the space to give this business what it needs. The reason many studio owners struggle is they keep themselves in it too much in the teaching capacity and doing the things and they’re not working on the business enough.
that’s if you can really be aware of that and hold to what we call Vision Dates having whole days of just working on the vision and moving towards the vision of your business you’re going to fly you’re going to fly.
Michelle Hunter (23:27)
That’s right, that’s right. And Chantelle, I think on that long list that we’ve just regurgitated for April, there’s probably one at the end, which, we have this thing called Celebration Week, when all our members in Studio Evolution upload all their projects for that pillar. So everything they learnt from all the projects that Chantelle has beautifully outlined for them and they’re learning and they’re implementing into their studios.
they get to do their uploads and they come into Celebration Week and we celebrate the pillar that just was and all the hard work and the results that they’ve put into their business. And it’s something we hear every pillar at Celebration Week and we ask for our members feedback. And the one thing they say is, I wish I did Studio Evolution sooner.
Chantelle Bruinsma (24:04)
Mm.
Do you know my favorite bit about those conversations too? It’s when they say, my husband wish I’d done Studio Evolution sooner. Right? And how many like, I got my wife back and the amount of husbands I’ve heard, like have emailed us like directly and they were nervous at first about joining Studio Evolution because they’re like.
Michelle Hunter (24:20)
That gets me every time.
Yep. Yep.
Chantelle Bruinsma (24:40)
my wife is already stressed off her head. I don’t see her, she’s never home for dinner, I don’t get my wife anymore, the studio has her and there’s like this little resentment right underlying it all that she’s maxed and then like my wife comes to me saying I want to do this intensive program and like you know it’s going to change my life and everything and the husband’s like but I don’t see you as it is like how can you put one more thing onto your plate anyway they move through that conversation.
Michelle Hunter (24:42)
Yeah.
Yep. Yeah. She’s already maxed.
Chantelle Bruinsma (25:06)
and she steps into Studio Evolution and then suddenly it’s like the studio has been this wild horse that you haven’t been able to control and it’s just like just running everywhere and wild and you’re just trying to hold on while the studio is just bucking you around right and soon within a few months of joining Studio Evolution you see the rider take the reins and you see the horse get under control and soon it is just you’re leading the horse not this wild Brumby that’s kind of just gallivanting everywhere.
and the husband actually starts to see, or the partner starts to see their love come back into themselves and become the leader of the business that’s not just here to kind of flip-flop everywhere. It’s like, here’s where we’re going and here’s why. And that’s how they get their partner back, because they get this business under control. And for years, they resented the studio because it took their love away from them. And to see that return, ugh!
Michelle Hunter (26:01)
And then they even say, you know, I took my husband away for his birthday on holidays. Like those, that flow on effect is just.
Chantelle Bruinsma (26:06)
yeah, took my family to Europe because the studio could afford it for the first time. Big deals. Big, big, big deals. So when you’re ready, come and join us in Studio Evolution. It’s life changing and we would love to get your life back. Get your life back. It’s a beautiful thing. Well, everyone, thank you for listening. Hope you’ve taken note on the one thing.
Michelle Hunter (26:12)
Yeah. Huge.
Chantelle Bruinsma (26:34)
that we would share about just the one, the one thing that we wanted to communicate to you. And we will see you next time for more of your studio podcast. And if you’ve got a question you want us to answer, pop on over to SpeakPipe, leave us a voicemail. We would love to feature you on the pod and we’ll see you next time. Bye.
Michelle Hunter (26:35)
That’s right. The one. The one. The one.
friends.
That was so much. Like she got bang for a buck there.
a lot of All
Michelle Hunter (26:58)
So good. So good.
