Last weekend I spent a 50 hour weekend in Milwaukee.  Most of that time in the Milwaukee Theatre watching our kids dance their little hearts out at Groove Competition with a few breaks for sleep and Starbucks.  And, as crazy as that sounds, I would not have wanted to be anywhere else than right there with our teachers and families ...

It’s Earth Week. But for the sake of today’s Misty Minute, I want to focus my attention on the most important environment I believe we can nurture and protect—the environment in our homes. Our geographic environment has a climate and so do our homes.  And, as a studio owner, the environment in my home around recital time can be chaotic ...

Today ran into a student that I “lost” about five years ago.  When I say I “lost”, I mean to say I fought long and hard to keep her engaged and growing as a student, but in the end I was not able to keep her with our studio.  Despite my best effort, she moved to another dance studio in ...

Welcome to PART 3 of the 3-Part Series I will be sharing on “Mastering Your Life”.     Last week I challenged you to raise your “average of 5” and to take a good, hard look at how the people you spend the most time and ask whether they are having a positive effect, or negative effect, on your ability ...

Welcome to PART 2 of the 3-Part Series I will be sharing on “Mastering Your Life”.     Last week I challenged you to master the “Habit of 3” and get control of your financial life in three areas:   Spending Saving Giving   How did the week go? If we met for coffee today would you be able to ...

What’s on your to-do list this week?  If you are like most people I know, you have more on your list than time in the day.   I’m with you!  My dance studio serves over 750 kids in our regular weekly classes, not counting our community outreach programs which serve another 600 over the course of the year.  Competition starts ...

7 Ways to Ensure a Strong Summer As I sit down to write this article, it’s 10 below zero outside the doors of my studio. We are in the depths of winter in Wisconsin and summer is on my mind. But, I’m not thinking about vacations or visits to the local pool. My mind is fixed on the programming I ...

If my family WINS, does the studio have to LOSE?   Every year at this time I talk to studio owners who experience what I have come to call the “Win-Lose” cycle of studio ownership.  It goes something like this: As a studio owner, you work really hard to get costumes ordered before Christmas break, produce a great round of ...

It’s T-minus three weeks and counting!   Count down to what you say?  To the end of 2015, of course. The end of the business year AND the end of your opportunity to make a positive impact on enrollment for the 2015-16 dance season.   One of our member studio owners, Vanessa Berry of Kick Studios in NJ,  took this …

Right Thing, Wrong Time I was recently doing a coaching call with a dance studio owner and she was talking about how badly she wanted to expand to a second location.  She was absolutely convinced that expansion was the RIGHT thing to do. I completely AGREED with her.  And, yet I STILL advised her NOT to do it. Sound strange?  …