Today I’m joined by: Daniel Kazmola, Senior Marketing Manager at Uscreen—the leading video platform for creators and arguably the best platform for yoga teachers to host a yoga membership online.
This episode is essential listening for any yoga teacher who dreams of moving their teaching online but feels blocked by fear, overwhelm, or a lack of clarity. We go deep into what actually moves the needle in building your online yoga business—not just logo design or Canva edits, but the real, often uncomfortable work of showing up, learning to be on camera, and building meaningful relationships with your students through your content.
We talk about the common mindset traps yoga teachers fall into, how to get past perfectionism, and how to identify the actual high-leverage actions that lead to real growth.
Daniel shares powerful advice about creating content that resonates, how to talk to your audience (even if you only have a few students), and what to prioritize when you’re just getting started online. You’ll learn how to get over your fear of being on camera, how to structure your offers with real urgency and value, and how to shift your mindset from “selling” to “serving.”
This is the kind of conversation I wish I heard when I was first starting out. Whether you’re just beginning your online teaching journey or you’re ready to scale up, this episode will give you practical strategies and mindset shifts that can change everything.
🧘♂️ Topics covered:
The myth of perfection and how it keeps teachers stuck
How to get comfortable on camera (yes, even if it terrifies you)
The power of customer conversations to shape your offers
Why most yoga teachers avoid marketing—and why you shouldn’t
What to do when you need to make money now without feeling pushy
💬 5 Key Quotes:
- “Most yoga teachers spend too much time doing things that feel like work but don’t actually grow the business.” — Daniel
- “If you want to sell more, stop focusing on the features and start sharing the transformation.” — Daniel
- “Don’t record videos for the camera. Record videos for your most consistent student.” — Jeremy
- “You don’t need perfect gear. You need great content and great audio.” — Daniel
- “Being online is about serving people, not being perfect on screen.” — Jeremy
If you’re serious about moving your yoga business online—or growing what you’ve already started—this episode is full of actionable insights to help you move forward.
🔗Links
Daniel Kosmala on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielkosmala/
Uscreen YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Uscreen/videos
Uscreen Yoga examples: https://www.uscreen.tv/examples/yoga/#showcase
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Free Workshop: Become Your Own Yoga Teacher: https://www.quietmind.yoga/workshop
Subscribe for Free to “Self Care Sunday” (Free Weekly Updates & Exclusive Offers): http://www.quietmind.yoga/selfcaresunday
Instagram: https://www.quietmind.yoga/instagram
YouTube:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I've been teaching since 2011 and I think there are 10
essential skills of teaching well.
This is not something I made-up,but it's something I've observed
from myself and teachers that I look up to and what I've seen
work for other teachers. Now that I've LED teacher
training since 2019, I've seen what really works for people and
what doesn't work, and I've distilled it all into these 10
(00:23):
essential things that I share atthe free workshop.
Become your own yoga teacher. Quiet Mind at Yoga Slash
Workshop is where you can check that out and learn those 10
essential skills. One of them is the business of
yoga. So I was very happy to get this
message that came in from You Screen.
(00:43):
You Screen is probably the platform that a lot of yoga
teachers use for their memberships.
If you've been in a yoga membership, they are likely on
you Screen. There are some similar
platforms, maybe they're on another one, but You Screen is
very common and very good. I've used it myself.
I do happen to use a different one myself just because I've
been on that one for so long that I built everything there.
(01:05):
But You Screen is awesome. And if you are eventually
wanting to build a yoga membership, you might do it
there. But even if you don't want to do
an online membership and you just want to learn more about
the business of yoga and the marketing, Daniel Cosmola is an
amazing resource. So we had a really good
interview where we talked about things like what really stops
yoga teachers from moving onlinelike this kind of fears,
(01:27):
insecurities, the doubts that come up, the fear of being on
camera and how to get over that fear because Daniel had it too.
I had it in the past. I used to freeze on camera.
So how do you get over that? And then once you are doing
that, are you wasting your time on busy tasks?
People talk about starting a yoga business and then growing a
yoga business. And if you're in that phase
(01:48):
where you have something going and you want to grow it, what
does that really mean? And how do you know if you're
growing the business? Well, Again, Daniel is a senior
marketing manager, so he knows what really works to actually
grow a business. And it might not be what you
think and you might actually be hiding behind busy work as we'll
talk about in this episode. I know I've done it as well as
(02:09):
no shame or judgement in this, but we'll catch some of those
things in this interview and we'll talk about what actually
does grow the business. And we'll talk about the mindset
shift that helps make your marketing feel more authentic so
you're not feeling pushy. And what you would actually do
if you want to grow an online business doing something related
to teaching yoga, whether it's teaching classes, trainings,
(02:33):
workshops, if you want to grow online, Daniel's an amazing
resource. We had a great interview and he
is again, the senior marketing manager at Uscreen.
And they have a great YouTube channel that's a great resource
if you want to grow online. And you can find him on LinkedIn
if you want to work with him one-on-one.
I'll add the links for all that in the show notes.
But let's listen now to the interview with Daniel Cosmola
(02:55):
from. Uscreen.
Welcome back to the Yoga TeacherTraining Podcast.
I'm Jeremy Devons, and today I'mvery grateful to be having a
guest on whose name is Daniel Kosmala.
He is the senior marketing manager at Uscreen, which is
arguably the best platform for yoga teachers online to grow
(03:18):
their yoga. Business online and I'm going
to, we're going to talk a lot about marketing, business
sharing online and moving onlineand a lot of people are going to
be very interested in this topic.
So thank you for being here, Daniel.
Course, thanks for having me, Jeremy.
Yeah, so the first thing they just jump into is just people
who are teaching yoga already inperson.
(03:39):
They want to move online. They like the idea of moving
online, the freedom, the potential increase in income,
reaching more students, helping more people.
But there's some sort of block and it just doesn't happen and
they don't know why. And I talked to so many teachers
who are like this. They they want to be online.
They know it's ideal for them, but there's something stuck
(04:01):
there. So what do you think are some of
the things that could help people bridge that from the in
person to online gap? That's a great question.
Well, I think there there are a number of things that I think
get in the way in that process. One is you're going to have to
be on camera and be relatively comfortable with it, which can
(04:23):
be a big leap if you've never done it before.
And I'll come back to that one because I think that's a really
big one. I think the next thing is that
people when you're running a business or thinking about
starting even a digital business, one of the things that
happens is people get caught up in doing the the low hanging
fruit at all times. It's like what's the easiest
(04:46):
thing I can do right now that'llmake me feel like I'm working on
my business, but you're actuallynot.
And there's a lot of that. And I wouldn't, that is kind of
AI don't know if it's a universal truth or experience,
but it is very prevalent just based on the fact that like I
work with customers, you screen customers of all shapes and
(05:08):
sizes from 10 subscribers all the way to thousands of
subscribers in their membership platform.
And all of them have this problem where they're like, I'll
ask them, how do you spend your time working on your business?
And they're like, well, you know, I spend a fair amount of
time responding to emails, you know, trying to figure out what
I should do next. And and they'll just rattle off
(05:29):
a list of things. And I'm like, OK, well, if we
look at a list of priorities, where do those rank?
And they're like probably in thebottom half for the most part.
I'm like, OK, well, you know, your marketing's broken.
Why aren't you focused on figuring that out?
And they're like, because I don't know what to do.
It's really hard. And I, I don't know what to do
next or like, I have no one to help me.
And I don't know who to trust inorder to get help.
(05:51):
And that's not like exclusive tojust that area of problems.
It's the same thing when you're making that transition from
physical to digital. It's I don't know what the right
next step is. I'm not sure how I should go
about this. I have no idea what to say on
camera. I get on camera and I start
sweating and stammering and saying you just get kind of
(06:13):
locked up. And so I think figuring out how
to prioritize the actually important things, it's, I mean,
it's kind of like doing maintenance around my house.
Like there's a paint scuff on the wall right there.
There's a spot on the floor where my dog licked the wall and
licked the paint off the wall a couple weeks ago.
And I'm like, that is a higher priority to get that fixed
because it looks bad. And yet it's been there for
(06:34):
weeks because I'm like, well, let me mop the floor or let me
vacuum the dog hair. And I'm not doing these
important aesthetic improvementsthat will like if I were to try
and go sell my house, would makea much bigger difference than
there being dog hair on the floor, which anyone can fix in
an instant. So it's like, stop worrying
about the low priority stuff andlike, yeah, would it be great to
(06:55):
get everything done? Yes.
But is it more important to get the low priority stuff done or
like the high impact things? And I think if you can kind of
make that shift and force yourself to do the hard work, it
makes a big difference. Yeah, I've definitely seen that.
And as a business owner myself, this is a common question.
I've hit up against a lot of like, what do I focus on next?
(07:16):
Because a lot of teachers get into teaching and wanting like
freedom and choice and to be their own boss.
And a lot of teachers end up being independent contractors at
a studio. So they just need to show up and
teach and they choose what they teach.
They often times pick when they teach and where they teach.
But now there's just a lot of choice.
And it's way easier to just spend a few hours designing a
(07:40):
logo on Canva or just updating your bio on your website rather
than the actual things that are going to grow the business.
When we talk about growing a business, that usually is going
to involve more people finding you, more customers, more sales,
and more deepening those relationships.
(08:00):
And that's marketing. And that's a different skill.
Like a lot of yoga teachers don't learn marketing skills in
yoga trainings. So I personally had to seek out
marketing teachers and business teachers and learn to prioritize
that as much as the teaching. And I, I think you're, I totally
agree with you. It's, it's very easy to end up
(08:21):
focusing on the low hanging fruit and the insignificant
things. And then the things that
actually do grow the business, just kind of, it's like they're
not always so easy and so clear.So how do people like get
clarity of like what to focus on?
That's a great, that's a great follow up question.
I laughed when you when you saidthe designing a logo on a Canva
(08:44):
because I've done that exact thing.
Like I'm 3510 years ago, before I had kids, I used to have a lot
of free time and I was just exploring like try to build a
business from scratch. All of them failed because I was
doing these exact things. It was like, cool, I have this
great idea for a business. I'm going to go just build it
and see what happens. And I'd go get a, a logo on like
(09:06):
Upwork or fiver. And then I would go buy a domain
and then I would build a websitewith Squarespace or something.
And I'd be like, Oh, this is awesome.
And I'd send it to my friends and be like, Hey, this sounds
cool. And then I'd be like, shoot, now
what do I do? Oh, I actually like have to go
do the work. And so for people in, in the, in
the fitness industry or yoga industry, like for you trying to
(09:28):
figure out what the next steps are, it's to me, it's what makes
you uncomfortable. Like what ideas do you have that
make you uncomfortable? There's probably a good chance
there's something there that youneed to dig a little bit deeper
into. I think the second thing is
like, you can come up with an idea in a vacuum for how you're
going to do this and how you're going to approach it.
And that's fine. That's certainly one way you can
(09:50):
approach this. And people have and will
continue to be successful doing that.
However, the thing that I reallylove and I, I really feel like
the world has shifted towards islike, go get insights from an
ideal set of customers. Go figure out the people that
you want to reach or even the people in the studio that you're
currently reaching, like figure out what they consume online.
(10:11):
If you're wanting to make that shift to go online, go talk to
them. Be like, I want 30 minutes of
your time to sit. I'm going to pay for your
coffee, your smoothie, whatever,after my class.
And I just want you to tell me about what you do online.
The yoga content you consume on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok
or the newsletters that you get.What do you like?
Why do you like them? Which ones do you actually
(10:35):
currently subscribe to? And all of that is quite
literally research and data for your business that you can then
take. You could use AI to analyze all
of your notes and tell you like,okay, based on this, here's some
ideas of what you could go do tomake a difference in your
business. Now, let's say you're not going
to do that. I would advise against it
because I really think, like getting insights from your
(10:57):
audience is one of the most powerful things you can do at
any stage of your business. I talked to people who have no
business. I talked to people who are doing
$70,000 a month and have never talked to their audience.
And then they go do it and all of a sudden they're making
$100,000 a month and you're like, yeah, it was worth $30,000
a month ago. Listen to your audience and
figure that out. Yeah.
(11:18):
So I really believe heavily in doing that one first.
Another place you can do this islike social media comments.
You can go look at people who already exist on the Internet
who are making content similar to what you would want to create
and just look at what they're creating, what's getting the
most, what reels are getting most views and then figure out
why are those getting views. And then listen, you can go
(11:41):
like, it's not stealing, but like copying people is an art
form or like copying formats is an art form.
There are film makers, there aremusicians, composers,
songwriters. John Williams is one of the
greatest film composers of all time.
And there are countless like dissections on YouTube of like
the Star Wars theme actually came from classical music
(12:02):
written in the the 1600s or whatever it is.
Like great artists steal is a very common trope.
And like in this instance, go ifit's here's what I eat in the
day as a yoga instructor, There are thousands of posts like that
and people still eat it up because it's personal, it's
relatable. And go film your first one, post
(12:23):
it, look for feedback, and then do it again and go.
So go find people in your niche,look at their reels, what's
doing well, what's not, What arepeople saying in the comments
that is just as valuable as sitting across the table from
somebody who sat through one of your classes as well.
And so I really think like, start there and then use that to
build and do stuff that you're actually going to get feedback
(12:44):
from real people. Don't go do stuff that like at
this stage, you don't need to godo stuff that's going to make
you feel good because you're going to get feedback that does
not make you feel good. And that's OK.
That's part of building a business.
That's part of doing the work that you're doing is like you're
not always part of being an entrepreneur is failure.
And I have this conversation with the people using Uscreen
(13:06):
all the time. I'm like, you can't be
discouraged because we ran in a test and it didn't work because
that's like you're looking at itthe wrong way because I look at
it as like perfect. One more thing we don't, we know
that we're not going to repeat again in the future because it
didn't work for this reason and this reason.
Now let's go try the next experiment on the list that we
think will have an impact. And you've got to approach your
(13:26):
work just like that. Like not everything's going to
hit most of your stuff won't In baseball, you're if you hit the
ball 2 out of 10 times, you're doing pretty good.
You're doing pretty good. If you hit it 3 out of 10 times,
you're doing amazing. So like that is not too
dissimilar from what we're talking about here.
So I think it's finding things where you can get live tangible
(13:47):
feedback and incorporating that into what you do next is like
the best kind of next step. That's really good advice.
And I have a friend of mine who spent about nine months building
what he thought was like the perfect coaching system for his
clients and made all these beautiful PDFs and all this
(14:09):
amazing graphic design. And they do this step and that
step and all these details. And he told me he got to the end
of it after nine months and he, like, pressed enter on the last
paragraph of the thing and he just kind of sat back.
He's like, OK, I did it. Now what?
And he froze. Like it's like he didn't know
(14:33):
what to do with the thing that he's that was like the perfect
thing he was building. And first thing I thought was
this. I've, I've done that too as a
musician. I did that in the past, spent
years making the perfect album. And then it's like, well,
actually now I need to like share this with people.
I need to go play. I need to get feedback.
Like, do people actually like these songs?
(14:54):
And it's, it's an easy trap to fall into, I think in the early
stages of creating something andlike you want to create
something and make it perfect and then share it.
But what you're talking about isreally like the entrepreneurial
spirit and the energy of like, what do people actually want?
And like, try to make a, a beta version of that and start
(15:16):
building on that. And like then you're actually
building something people actually already said they want
versus like building something nobody said they wanted that you
think they might want. And then you try to somehow jam
those puzzle pieces together andit's this guy like ended up kind
of scrapping that whole thing. It's been like 5 months now.
And he just, he's not using thatthing that he spent nine months
(15:38):
building because it's not reallywhat people need that he's
interacting with. Right.
I've, I have started three businesses in the past and all
of them failed because I didn't listen to customers or just I
didn't. It's not because like they were
talking to me and I wasn't listening.
I just didn't even think about that part of the process and
using that to make the business better.
(16:00):
I was just like, this is the product I need to sell it to
people. Let me go talk to people about
the product and hope that that'sgoing to work.
And then when it didn't, I was like, why isn't this working?
This is a good product. And it was like, well, you
didn't listen, you didn't ask for feedback, you didn't improve
the product based on feedback. You didn't iterate, you didn't
try to make things better or different or, or change the way
(16:22):
you're doing. You just kept doing the same
thing, expecting different results and then wondering why
didn't this work? And now 10 years have passed and
like now I get it, but back thenI didn't.
And I if some, I wish somebody had come along and told me the
same things that I'm able to tell people now, which is like,
go get real feedback that matters and then adjust
accordingly. And you'll eventually find the
(16:42):
right people who resonate with your content or with your
approach to things, and you'll start to get some traction, and
you can build from there. Absolutely.
Yeah. I just saw a little video of
Jeff Bezos back in the early days of Amazon and they're like,
are you guys an online business?But now you're starting
distribution centers. So are you an in person
business? Are you online or in person?
(17:03):
What is it like? What are you doing?
And he said, we are relentlesslyfocused on customer
satisfaction. So if the customers are going to
benefit from us having distribution centers closer to
their location, then we're goingto build distribution centers.
And then he kept asking all these questions.
The interviewer like, but that makes you an in person business
and the thought you're an onlinebusiness.
And he's like, we are relentlessly focused on customer
(17:25):
satisfaction. If the customers wanted, that's
what we're going to do. And I love that.
And of course now Amazon's like super, super successful
business, but back then, like people were like, what is this?
What are you doing? It doesn't mean.
And didn't really think that it would be as big as they were.
So yeah, I found that to be trueas well.
It's like talk to people and, and I like your advice too, of
(17:50):
like, well, then people might say, well, I don't have a lot of
students yet, so who am I going to talk to?
And yeah, now with comments on videos and people doing similar
things on YouTube or whatever online, you can see, you know,
people leave feedback and and for a lot of yoga teachers, we
don't actually get a lot of feedback on classes.
(18:11):
Like teachers will teach a classand the feedback is always,
thank you, that was great. That's just what I needed.
I'll be back. Like it's always positive.
It's always broad like this. Maybe it's like all that back
thing helped my back a lot. But you don't, that is not
enough feedback to like really do anything like build something
or create something new with. So like what you're saying is
(18:32):
like have a deeper conversation or look at other stuff online.
If you don't have those clients to talk to, I think that's
amazing advice. Yeah, I mean, you spend $5 on a
coffee at Starbucks for that person like you, You have
tendency of 10 people in your class.
You're probably at least friendly enough with a couple of
(18:53):
them to say, hey, can we grab some coffee?
I'd love to talk to you about anidea I had and get your feedback
since you've been coming to my classes for however long or
whatever it is, and that the insights you'll get from that
are worth hundreds more than the$5 coffee that you bought for
them. Absolutely.
And then usually those people are like, well, whatever you do,
I'm signing up so. Exactly.
You got your first client. Yep, exactly.
(19:15):
And so then the next step is, well, if we're talking today
mostly about moving online, so this means that if you're going
to be online, there's a camera involved for you to be seen by
the people. So now you you've clarified, OK,
maybe Susie could really benefitfrom a prenatal training of some
(19:36):
sort or whatever the topic is doesn't matter so much.
But usually there's going to be some involvement of a camera and
you in front of a camera, not infront of a person, not in front
of a class, just you looking at the camera lens.
And I know for me, I froze up for a few years trying to do
this, like many years ago, like when I first started as, OK, I
(19:58):
want to be on YouTube, I want tobe online, got all the set up,
turn the camera on. And like, I couldn't really
breathe very deeply. I didn't know what to say.
I froze up. It was so awkward to me.
And it took me a few years to like, know how to talk to a
camera, like I'm talking to a person or a class.
So I know you've got a lot of experience with this too.
(20:20):
So what do you say to those people who are in that spot?
Yeah, that that's a, that's a extremely common 1.
I don't know of anyone who can get in in front of a camera
their first time and just feel like, yeah, this totally feels
normal. Me just talking into this dark
black circle that feels like it's sucking the life out of me.
(20:41):
That's how it feels at the start.
It does get better and it does change from there.
I used to not be on camera. I used to like I studied film
and production and in college and was like, I'm going to get
into post production or behind the scenes of production.
I have 0 desire to be in front of the camera.
(21:01):
I think I would be terrible at it.
I get way too nervous. I'm bad at public speaking.
I sweat profusely, like disgustingly so when that
happens. And I don't know that I have
anything interesting to say. And I know I'm not the only one
who thinks those exact same thoughts.
And the truth of the matter is like about sometime in my early
20s, I had the realization I waslike, the world is shifting hard
(21:26):
towards video. And this was like late 2000s,
early 2010 probably like YouTubewas really starting to pop for
for the first time, Youtubers, bloggers, all that was
happening. And I was like, man, being on
camera would be such a valuable.Like being comfortable on camera
is such a rare skill that it probably would paint pretty well
(21:50):
if I can figure out how to do this and be comfortable with it.
So I had the benefit of I was young, I had no kids and my wife
works night shifts. So three nights a week, I was
just like by myself. And I was either hang out with
friends, play with my dog, work or clean the house.
And I was like, I think out of all the options, like I spent
(22:13):
some time with friends, obviously, and, and my dog, who
who if you hear is like laying right behind me.
But the most common thing I did was work and I would just figure
out fun things to do. That's why I got into drop
shipping. It's why I started three
different businesses during thatperiod of my life, None again,
none of which were successful atthat point in my life.
But the other thing I did was like, OK, I've got camera gear.
(22:35):
I've been shooting stuff for years.
No one's home. I can't embarrass, be
embarrassed because no one's ever going to see this footage.
So I set my camera up in my living room and I hit record,
sat down in front of it and was like, I would just pick a topic.
Like it could be something I sawin the news.
It could be a funny video I saw.And I would just talk to the
camera for at least 10 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes.
(22:58):
And it was terrible. And I'm, I, I should have kept
some of that footage just to like show people that, that
like, I'm not making this up, but I was so embarrassed at the
time that like, I would take it,I would force myself to rewatch
it and I would take notes and just be absolutely brutal with
the feedback of like, why is this bad?
Like how does this compare to a Ted talk?
(23:18):
Because Ted talks at the time were really big.
I would watch Ted talks and thenI would watch my footage and be
like, got a long way to go. But based on what these people
are doing really well, here's what I'm doing really bad and
how I can do it better. I would delete the footage and
then I would go do it again. And I did that a lot like, and I
would try different things. Like I even tried to fake cry on
(23:38):
camera once, which it was as cringy as it sounds, at least it
still is to me. I don't know how it was received
back then, if anyone else ever saw that footage, but I wanted
to like go through the breadth of like what was possible
filming myself on camera. And then I started, I made a
bunch of random YouTube videos and then I did some stuff for a
(23:59):
couple different jobs. And then I ended up landing a
job at Youscreen as a YouTube creator initially.
And this was almost six years ago.
And that because I had forced myself to get comfortable on
camera, then I went and shot a video, sent it to the CEO of you
screen and he, he emailed me back.
I was like, we're looking for a YouTube creator.
Would you be interested? I was like, I wanted to get into
software. I wanted to get into the tech
(24:21):
world. And that was my foot in the door
because I'd actually just been working in marketing for almost
a decade. And I was like, I'll get a
chance to get into marketing in the tech world, but this is how
I'm going to get my foot in the door.
And it was video. And it was only because I forced
myself to get on camera and do what was really uncomfortable
and give myself brutal feedback to get better and get more
comfortable. Now I can switch it on like I'll
(24:41):
have a arts team, our creative team at Uscreen is up to like
four or five people and I'll be like, hey, we, we've got the
script. I've got to film 3 scripts
today. I'm going to go do it and I'll
knock it out in 30 minutes and I'll be done.
And I turn on the camera, hit record and I can just turn it on
at this point. It's not intimidating, it's not
scary. It's just kind of comfortable.
And a big, big, big part of that, which this and this is the
(25:04):
thing I didn't recognize like when I initially started this
process is like, you can and should envision somebody on the
other side of the lens. You should think about who this
video is for and how it's going to help them.
And that makes it a little less intimidating because if, if
you're a yoga teacher and you'reused to being in a room of 10 to
15 people or more and comfortably leading them through
(25:27):
yoga, just imagine that you're doing that and, and there's a
camera in the back of the room to help you for whatever the
purpose is. But you like the purpose of, of
you being on camera is not the camera, It's to serve the people
on the other side. And if you, a lot of people see
the camera and they lose sight of everything but that camera.
I know there's somebody that I, I know who you can turn the
(25:51):
camera on and you can just see his eyes glaze over and like he
can do it, but he's uncomfortable the whole time and
he just like struggles to get through it.
And like even with coaching, it's really hard.
And you, so you've got to like, you can't just mentally shut
down. Like don't worry that you're
looking at a lens, like I'm looking at a lens right now.
(26:12):
But I know that Jeremy's on the other side.
And then on the other side of that are a bunch of people who
are incredible yoga instructors that really are hungry for what
I have to share. And because I know that I can
provide value, I'm not concernedabout me being uncomfortable on
camera because I, I know my stuff.
And I think that's what a lot ofpeople struggle with.
It's like they're, it's almost like selling, selling to people
(26:36):
in person 1 to 1 is super uncomfortable for most people
because you're like, I have thisthing to sell.
You're a potential buyer. I need to tell you about this
thing. And that's the wrong way to
think about it. The right way to think about it
is I am coming to you and I'm not trying to sell you on you
screen, but if I was I would I would not pitch you on all the
features and all those incredible things.
What I would actually do is I would tell you about the people
(26:58):
that we've impacted, the resultsthat they've gotten, the things
that they have to say about us. And then why we're different
than any of our competitors, which is that we give a crap.
Like we, our support is known for going above and beyond.
Like I have been working hands on with customers to help them
improve their business and not really asking for, for much in
(27:19):
return. And that is like the difference
between Uscreen and other companies.
And so like that right there is already far more compelling than
if I were to come on here and belike, well, we have live
streaming, we've got apps, we'vegot community features, we've
got DMS like you can do coaching, you can do courses.
Like I could list features for days too.
But that's not the stuff that's going to resonate and make you
excited about what we have to offer.
(27:41):
It's all those other things about the evidence of who we are
and what we do and how we help that really makes it tangible
difference. And so if you can focus on that
when you're on camera and that you're serving people with that
on the other side, it's going tomake an absolute world of
difference. Yeah, a lot of the times I
imagine there's somebody, like aspecific person I'm talking to.
(28:02):
Like for a lot of yoga teachers,I'll say like who's your most
consistent student that you know, is going to be there in
every class? Oh yeah, Lauren, you know, she's
always there. OK, well, imagine Lauren is just
making a video for Lauren. That's it.
Or are you making a podcast for Lauren and it's just for her.
And if you do that, that and it will be applicable to everybody
(28:24):
else too, like because everyone else is also an individual.
So that's a really valuable thing I found.
And I've, I knew 1 teacher who spent a lot of money, a lot of
time finding her ideal customer avatar and doing like this
visualization and this whole complex process.
OK, she's this year many years old.
(28:45):
She went to this college. She has this many kids, this
many pets, all this stuff. And she's, she was very excited,
like. I got my.
Ideal customer. I know who it is and she
described this person and I knowthis teacher and I know her
students. And I was like, that doesn't
sound like any of your students though.
Like that's almost the opposite of a lot of your students.
Like her students are like all like a certain age, certain, you
(29:08):
know, all this stuff. And this, this ideal customer
she sort of thought was what it should be in her head was just
not it. And and she went this way and I
just kind of like watched her goand try to market this thing to
this ideal customer. She thought it should be for a
few months and then she it just wasn't going anywhere.
It was, she was struggling, she was frustrated, like it wasn't
(29:29):
working. And then she just went back to
this. I asked her this question like,
well, who is the, the student who's most consistently at your
class and just make it for her. And then everything started to
change after that or podcast grew or offers grew.
So that's really good advice. And I've definitely seen that
myself as well. Of like, imagine you're talking
(29:49):
to somebody on the other side. It's not just a black circle on
your camera and there's actual person there.
And then more people will relateto that and it just feels more
natural. And then another thing you
talked about there is like the modeling.
So like then you, you record yourself and then you see how
you are. You compare it to Ted Talks, you
compare it to other people. So many yoga teachers online.
(30:12):
Now you can look at other yoga videos side by side with yours.
OK, I like this, don't like that.
And it's very humbling and it's can slow you down a lot.
It's like, OK, well, I'm going to need to improve this and
that, but but also I think it's like, well, this kind of comes
back to the priority too, of like, what's the most important
(30:35):
thing there? Like if you are modeling after
somebody, doesn't matter so muchabout the lighting, the
microphone, the this like there's so many things that are
teaching a sequence, the poses you do camera angles.
How do how does a teacher listening to this like know what
they should prioritize to improve upon first on their
(30:56):
videos? Oh, that question, man.
I've been answering this question in some shape or form
for years and years and years. I, I used to be, I'm just going
to going to be very transparent and admit I used to be like a
(31:17):
freak about gear. Like I was like, I want the
best. Anytime there's new something
available, I want it. I want the best of the best
because I want the crispiness. I want the best audio.
I want the best I I used to be terrible at lighting.
I've gotten a little bit better these days, but still not great.
And to be honest, with the evidence that I've seen, it's
(31:40):
more important that you have great content than great gear.
Great content can exist with just whatever gear, but you can
have great gear and really bad content.
Really, really bad. I'm a private example of that.
I've made really, really bad content with really, really
great gear. So I I am of a mind.
(32:03):
Cameras are so good, like cameras are so good these days.
You do not have to reinvent the wheel.
I would rather you spend money on prioritizing audio,
especially as a fitness instructor and figuring that out
then I would like on a camera oreven lighting because lighting
you can figure out people are willing to forgive camera
(32:25):
quality. You have a 4K camera in your
pocket. Almost everyone does, but audio,
like bad audio is such a huge turn off in 2025, whether it's a
podcast or a video or a movie that like the audio levels are
messed up. Like I deal with that even at
home, which is crazy that in 2025, like I'll be watching a
(32:47):
movie, it'll cut to, I know mostpeople don't watch linear TV
anymore, but like if I'm watching a movie on YouTube TV
and it cuts to commercial and then all of a sudden the
commercial volume is like this high and the movie was this and
like, could we not? Like, why can you not
standardize? So audio matters way more than
you would expect. And especially for fitness
instructors, like, you don't want to hear the echo of the
(33:07):
room you want. So you want like, something
that's on you, probably close toyour mouth or a headset one, if
you can, if you can deal with that.
So like, I think just spending alittle bit of money on that is
important, but I would rather you focus on making really,
really, really good content, I think.
Yeah. Does that answer that question?
Yeah, no, I agree. And I found like many years ago,
(33:31):
I found Alan Watson. Like not really an Alan Watson.
He has a lot of recordings from like the 60s and 70s, and some
of them are just terrible quality.
But I didn't care that much like, because it's Alan Watson.
I liked his philosophy, I liked his energy.
I liked what he was sharing the content, the actual value so
much that it's like, even if it's terrible audio, it's like,
(33:52):
OK, I'm willing to to listen andI want to hear it.
But but I agree, like having great audio quality is a big,
big thing now and like very important.
But the content I would agree isthat the content is probably, if
you had to prioritize one thing,it's just actually just being a
good teacher and actually providing really good value,
(34:13):
even if it's just on your phone or whatever to start and you can
improve those things later. Yeah.
Yeah, and gear is just a, it's ablack hole of options and
opinions from people on the Internet.
Cuz inevitably you're gonna go to YouTube or wherever and
search like best camera for yogaor best audio or whatever.
And that it is an unending blackhole of video content about
(34:37):
those things, which is fine. Like there is some useful stuff,
but also you you can end up in that traffic that we talked
about earlier of like doing the low hanging, low priority stuff
that does not drive impact for your business.
And it's more important that youfocus on getting out there and
making content that gets feedback regardless of how you
shoot it, than it is like getting the gear dialed in.
(35:00):
Yeah, Is that same thing again of like actually engaging with
people versus like spending months shopping, basically
comparing microphones and lighting and all this stuff.
It's and then when you actually talk to people, you might say,
what do you think about the lighting in my video?
Like what do you mean? Or what do you think about the
(35:23):
the camera setup? Like I don't, I wasn't looking
at the video so much. I was just doing the practice,
you know. So a lot of times you'll hear
things like that when you actually talk to the people.
They don't, they don't even really care about that or think
about it. But yeah, it's a nice touch and
then, you know, a nice improvement, but it's secondary
to the actual content and the what's actually going to help
people for sure. And just be sure, like, if
(35:45):
you're going to get feedback on your content, don't show it to
like your parents. Yeah, show it to people who are
like actually in your target target demographic.
So you don't. Because like, I know if I send a
video to my parents, the most common feedback I get is it's
too dark. I can't see what's going on.
And I the music's too loud. I can't hear anything that's
being said, which is like kind of helpful feedback, but not
(36:07):
really the kind of feedback I'm looking for.
I'm actually looking for contentfeedback.
So just be smart about who you send it to and making sure that
those are people you would actually end up serving in the
long run. Because if you take feedback
from people outside of your target market, it's not actually
going to help you. Totally.
So then you touched on this already, like actually going
(36:28):
into selling something, which isif you want to grow a business,
like that's what you're doing, you're selling something.
But I think so many yoga teachers might already be like
having sweaty palms just for me,talking about the word selling.
And like, I don't like it. It's awkward.
I feel pushy. I don't want to, you know,
(36:49):
spiritual, I don't want to push people.
So sure, you've heard a lot of this for many people, many
clients and teachers online. So how do we go from, OK, you've
got this skill, you love teaching yoga, you love helping
people. You want to help people.
You've talked to an audience andlike, you've figured out what
they want. Now you've got to sell that to
(37:11):
them. And, and you've talked about it
a little bit already of like notfocusing so much on like the
benefit or like the features, but more like how it's going to
serve them. But yeah, how do people make
this transition to feeling confident and selling?
I think one of the the good places that that you can start
with that is think about how youbuy stuff.
(37:33):
Like when you're, when you stumble across an ad for
something that you're interestedin in buying and you tap it, or
maybe you swipe through the carousel of pictures on
Instagram because you're interested.
Like when you then start entering that sales process and
maybe you sign up for an e-mail list to get a discount and they
start nurturing you through that.
(37:53):
Whatever it is, the ones that are the most compelling are not
the ones that come out like swinging really hard.
In my experience, it's a, a really great product that can
speak for itself in, in, in a lot of cases, not always, but a
lot of the times they're focusedon like what does this help you
(38:16):
accomplish? What, what end result does this
get you as the consumer of this thing?
And I think if you, you have to start thinking through your
product through that lens first and foremost.
Because if, again, if you come at it from the, the vantage
point of like, I have a product and there are people who need to
buy it and I have to sell it too, because I need to make
(38:38):
money to survive or whatever it is.
And you're just like I, I walk up the best way to think about
this. And the one, the most common way
I help people understand this islike, I've been married to my
wife for 12 years. We've known each other for 14 or
15 years. We met at a baseball game in
Atlanta 15 years ago, 14 years ago, something like that.
(39:01):
If I had walked up to her that night and I was like, I think
I'm going to marry you. How do you feel about that?
And like, tried to sell and was like, you want to go on a date?
Pretty sure I would have gotten shot down.
I'm pretty sure she would have been like, this is creepy.
I don't know you. I don't know anyone.
Like I know some people who knowyou, but they don't know you
(39:22):
that well. It's going to be a no for me,
dog. Whereas my actual approach was
like, OK, let's, let's start building something here.
OK, we, we, we have some friendsin common.
What do they know about you? What do they know about me?
Let's find out where the commonalities lie.
Great. First step.
Hey, would you do you want to hang out again?
(39:44):
Like we go to school. We actually go to the same
school together. Maybe we should hang out.
Do that a few times. Actually, I really enjoy
spending time with you. You like you, you've brought me
into your loop. Let's go on a real date now.
And it just progressed from there.
Now 15 years later, 3 kids later, like we're still hanging
out and and going through it because I, I'm warmed her up to
(40:05):
the process. Like we warmed each other up to
that selling process of like, yeah, I think this is going to
work long term. Let let's let's make it
official. And a lot of the times people
approach selling and not in thatway at all.
They don't think of it as relational in any sense.
And I'm here to tell you that selling in 2025 and beyond is
more relational than it is ever been, especially when it comes
(40:29):
to selling something that is a recurring monthly charge.
If you're just selling gear, that's a one time.
Like if you're just trying to get me to buy a yoga mat from an
ad, that's a different story. That should be like really great
product, really great testimonials, really compelling
price point or positioning. Boom, you can sell that pretty
quickly to to a lot of people. If I try to sell that way on a
(40:53):
membership, that's exactly like what what I just described of
what I tried to do to what I in an alternate universe, I tried
to do with my wife and like get her to marry and be on the first
time, first time I met her and it just doesn't work.
What happens with that is that you end up with high churn
rates, your business collapses. It's a it's a whole mess, but
with something with selling in 2025, it the more relational you
(41:14):
are, the better. Like people want to know more
about you. They want to hear about you
might think you're the most boring person in the universe.
And I guarantee there are thingsabout you that I would love and
that would resonate with me. But unless you tell me about
those and find ways to share them with people, they're never
going to know and they're never going to have that attachment to
you or your business. And so finding a way to
(41:36):
communicate that in a way that'snot, I'm selling you something.
I it costs $20.00 a month and you're going to get these
things. And instead turning that into, I
have been teaching yoga for 22 years.
In those 22 years I've worked with 15,000 plus people.
And on average, those people aregoing from this sad, no
(41:59):
direction in life, a little bit overweight, not toned, not
flexible, and just completely unhappy. 2 within 12 months,
they're in the best shape of their life.
They're feeling mentally the best they've ever felt.
They're the most at peace they've ever felt.
And their their outlook on life has completely changed.
And now they're multimillionaires.
(42:20):
Whatever, whatever the selling points are of the end result of
your program is far more compelling.
And then I can say, and that's just one of 10,000 people who've
had those same results. And here's what they've said
about working with me or workingwith my content or my program or
my classes. That's much more exciting and
compelling to even consider looking into them when I list
(42:43):
off random features just becauseyou think you have to sell
something like that. It's much more compelling to
talk about who you are, where you've been, what you've done
and who you've helped, how you've helped them, and why any
of that freaking matters to anyone.
And if you can cover those things, you're in a much better
position to sell than all those other instances.
(43:03):
Yeah, this is the guy. I know somebody personally who's
in a place where she's struggling a bit financially and
she teaches like Yoga, not a Beta.
And she's pretty good at this sort of like everything you're
saying. But this thing comes up in her.
And I think a lot of teachers might relate to this is OK, it's
(43:25):
getting a little close and the money in the bank account and
like bills are coming due. And I don't starting to feel
like this urgency and scarcity and like a little bit of fear of
like now I need to make money and like putting some pressure
on this now. And I don't want to put pressure
on it. I don't want to be pushy, but I
do need to make the money and you need to make the pay the
bills. So what do you say the teachers
(43:48):
are like this? Like there is a sense of like
urgency and pressure now. Like they've got to pay their
bills this month and they've gotto make more sales, and they
don't want to become pushy or inauthentic in some way.
Yeah, that's a that's a a uniqueand interesting question.
I don't get asked a lot. My gut reaction be it's OK, it's
(44:11):
going to be OK is the initial thing like you'll figure it out.
The second more tangible and helpful thing I'll say is my gut
instinct in that case would be to like run a run a campaign or
run a sale or special promotion of some sort, right.
Because if, if you're not makingthe sales that you want on your
(44:32):
main thing, then there's a reason for that that you should
dig into when you have the time and you like, there's a problem
there that you need to diagnose,you need to face and you need to
figure out how to fix it becausethat shouldn't be the case.
Now that being said, there's problem.
There is always an element of like you can run a, a promotion.
And as an example, I have a customer who I was working with
(44:55):
at Youscreen in January and she has a big event she attends
every year with like 30,000 people in attendance.
She her, she gets a ton of additions to her e-mail list.
And previously she would do a huge annual discount, like a
huge sale on her annual subscription in January.
But every year she would see thesame pattern, which is like
(45:17):
she'd get a big spike because she's offering a big fat
discount. And then the next month things
would drop back down. So she'd have these, she has
these four big revenue spikes every year, which are like,
fine, it's helped her grow her business from like 0 to
reasonably sustainable. But my, my argument for her was
like, hey, we've got to take a longer term approach to this and
(45:39):
we can still make money without like caving and giving people a
predictable discount that like Will will condition them to not
want to pay full price because they're like, I'll just wait two
months and she'll do a sale again and I'll, I'll jump in
then because we want people to pay full price.
We want us to pay the value thatyou're worth and we want you to
(45:59):
build a more sustainable business.
So what I did with her, I was like, hey, we're going to figure
out the recurring revenue funnel.
That's fine. You have all these emails.
What we can do to nurture them in the meantime is you have this
eight week program that's a bundle of, of classes, basically
an 8 week course. And what we're going to do is
we're going to package that up, say it's $35.00 because her her
(46:23):
monthly prices, they're like it's like 15 or $19.00 a month,
I can't remember. And I was like, OK, so we're
basically giving them two monthsof content.
Let's say the price is $35 basically for this because it's
really some of her best stuff. And then we're going to, we're
going to offer a discount and run a flash sale, make it $25
for the entire thing. And that is a one time purchase.
(46:45):
They'll pay $25. They'll get 8 weeks of content.
They can excuse me, they can access it through her app.
It comes with some supporting materials, access to her via
e-mail, whatever else. And we're going to say this
deal, this thing is only available for Wednesday until
Friday at midnight. And she had previously tried to
sell this exact bundle and had gotten like 7 sales.
(47:08):
Well, we added the constraints of the time, which is an urgency
thing, which you mentioned. Urgency and scarcity are two of
the biggest levers you have whenit comes to marketing.
There's either a limited supply or a limited amount of time,
more or less. And you can use those levers
over and over and over. So we use the amount of time.
We said Friday is when this dealends.
We're not going to offer it again after that.
(47:28):
In that basically 48 hour window, we were able to drive
about 120 sales, which replaced her revenue the previous year
from the annual sale and actually was one of her best
month ever on the platform sinceshe joined New Screen, which
she's been with us for four or five years.
And after that I was like, great, now those people are
(47:49):
actually being nurtured for 8 weeks with your content and
getting to decide, OK, we've gota basically 120 warm leads
who've said to us, I like your content enough to pay for it.
Now I want to see if I can get value from it and our job in the
8 weeks to help them get as muchvalue as possible and make them
fall in love with the program and all the features and the
things that are available. And then we can come in and be
(48:09):
like, by the way, we have a membership program that you get
that program plus a dozen other plus many programs and community
and all these different featuresthat are available to them that
make it more sticky and compelling.
And we can them to membership. And while we're doing all of
that, we're gonna go fix your actual funnel and get that up
and running. So that's like a deep dive into
(48:30):
what a membership actual examplewould feel like.
So for you, I'll dial it back tothe specific takeaways.
Like I would probably consider running a short campaign that's
either limited by supply or time.
And you have to have messaging that's really resonates with
people. And that comes back to the
knowing your audience, knowing what they want and meeting them
(48:50):
with that. Because if you can have those
things dialed in and then you add time or limited kind of
supply, you're going to you're going to make more sales.
And so if you can do that with testimonials, personal stories
that resonate with people, it's going to be that much more
effective. That's great advice.
And I know this person well thather offers are not in any way
(49:13):
time bound or scarcity based or urgent.
There's no scarcity or urgency in their offer.
It's just like, here's what I doand here's what it costs and
just, you know, whoever wants itcan sign up whenever.
And then, yeah, there's less incentive, less motivation, less
reason for people to sign up. Now maybe they look at it and
(49:34):
go, it's interesting. Yeah, I want to do that, but not
right now. But if there is some level of
like authentic scarcity and urgency, like, you know, she can
only take on so many clients this month or she only has as
much time available for these sessions or whatever.
And if she just included that, yeah, that would I could see
that definitely increasing her sign ups almost overnight.
(49:57):
And just just that little thing.I've already what she already
has the great offer, but it's just adding these kind of little
things can make a huge difference.
For sure. Yeah, yeah.
And then it allows her to take some of the pressure off herself
of her own diversity about her own income and urgency of this,
because now it's like she's basically providing a better
(50:20):
offer. It's a more defined offer.
It's yeah. And it's clarifying like the
value to people because a lot oftimes people want to do it, but
they just put it off. It's like a Amazon wishlist.
It's like, yeah, I definitely want that, but I'll just wait.
I don't know why, but I'll just wait.
Yeah, I have a lot of things in my Amazon wishlist.
(50:41):
Yeah, exactly. So and then if there's a sale
though, like Amazon does like the the Amazon day or whatever,
the Prime Day. So then it's like, oh, now you
know, just for today you can buythat thing you wanted for like
half off. It's OK now.
Now you have a reason to buy it.Yep, exactly.
Yeah, so lots of great stuff. I feel like we could talk for a
(51:02):
long time here. So I really appreciate your time
and energy and your your thoughts and input.
I think lots of great marketing advice here.
I think people will find it super valuable.
Anything you want to share to toend with today?
No, I would just say you can find me on social.
My name, it's just at Daniel under score because Molly,
(51:23):
you're welcome to reach out. I love helping people with
marketing and I, I have worked with a lot of fitness people.
And if you're interested in video monetization online, EU
Screen's a great platform for that.
It's just uscreen.tv. And if you end up digging into
the funnel, make sure to let us know that you found us via this
podcast. Yeah, it's an amazing platform.
(51:46):
And you, you actually, you help people like you mentioned,
you're helping this client of Uscreen.
So you help people with their marketing in Uscreen, right?
That so yeah, my, my role has shifted a bit over the last few
months, but I'm doing more and more of that.
And I've actually spent like most of 2025 so far, like in the
weeds on calls with customers basically every day.
(52:08):
There was a point in February where I, I was like on calls all
day every day. And I've scaled it back because
we're trying to figure out like how do we scale this to more of
our customers? But there's it's just me doing
it right now. So it's like my we're basically
limited by my time. And so now I'm like, I've taken
a bunch of learnings from what we've we've done so far and it's
like, OK, well, how do we, how can I teach this to other
(52:29):
coaches basically and have them help other people that use
screen so we can make this a bitmore accessible because right
now it's relatively small scale.Very cool.
That's that's amazing that you offer that.
And obviously, like you say, theresult is like super valuable to
the clients. Yeah.
So, yeah, again, thank you, Daniel.
It's so nice to meet you and thanks for being here today.
(52:49):
Thanks for having me. You want to go deeper with your
yoga studies or to quiet mind dot yoga slash workshop and
check out my free workshop to become your own yoga teacher.
Even you practice with the 10 core competencies of yoga I
(53:10):
teach, including anatomy, philosophy, business of yoga,
sequencing and everything that goes into practicing and
teaching yoga. That's a Quiet Mind at Yoga
Slash Workshop, and if you want to practice with me, check out
the Quiet Mind Yoga membership with.
Hundreds of classes in all styles for all requests at Quiet
Mind dot Yoga.
I've been teaching since 2011 and I think there are 10
essential skills of teaching well.
This is not something I made-up,but it's something I've observed
from myself and teachers that I look up to and what I've seen
work for other teachers. Now that I've LED teacher
training since 2019, I've seen what really works for people and
what doesn't work, and I've distilled it all into these 10
(00:23):
essential things that I share atthe free workshop.
Become your own yoga teacher. Quiet Mind at Yoga Slash
Workshop is where you can check that out and learn those 10
essential skills. One of them is the business of
yoga. So I was very happy to get this
message that came in from You Screen.
(00:43):
You Screen is probably the platform that a lot of yoga
teachers use for their memberships.
If you've been in a yoga membership, they are likely on
you Screen. There are some similar
platforms, maybe they're on another one, but You Screen is
very common and very good. I've used it myself.
I do happen to use a different one myself just because I've
been on that one for so long that I built everything there.
(01:05):
But You Screen is awesome. And if you are eventually
wanting to build a yoga membership, you might do it
there. But even if you don't want to do
an online membership and you just want to learn more about
the business of yoga and the marketing, Daniel Cosmola is an
amazing resource. So we had a really good
interview where we talked about things like what really stops
yoga teachers from moving onlinelike this kind of fears,
(01:27):
insecurities, the doubts that come up, the fear of being on
camera and how to get over that fear because Daniel had it too.
I had it in the past. I used to freeze on camera.
So how do you get over that? And then once you are doing
that, are you wasting your time on busy tasks?
People talk about starting a yoga business and then growing a
yoga business. And if you're in that phase
(01:48):
where you have something going and you want to grow it, what
does that really mean? And how do you know if you're
growing the business? Well, Again, Daniel is a senior
marketing manager, so he knows what really works to actually
grow a business. And it might not be what you
think and you might actually be hiding behind busy work as we'll
talk about in this episode. I know I've done it as well as
(02:09):
no shame or judgement in this, but we'll catch some of those
things in this interview and we'll talk about what actually
does grow the business. And we'll talk about the mindset
shift that helps make your marketing feel more authentic so
you're not feeling pushy. And what you would actually do
if you want to grow an online business doing something related
to teaching yoga, whether it's teaching classes, trainings,
(02:33):
workshops, if you want to grow online, Daniel's an amazing
resource. We had a great interview and he
is again, the senior marketing manager at Uscreen.
And they have a great YouTube channel that's a great resource
if you want to grow online. And you can find him on LinkedIn
if you want to work with him one-on-one.
I'll add the links for all that in the show notes.
But let's listen now to the interview with Daniel Cosmola
(02:55):
from. Uscreen.
Welcome back to the Yoga TeacherTraining Podcast.
I'm Jeremy Devons, and today I'mvery grateful to be having a
guest on whose name is Daniel Kosmala.
He is the senior marketing manager at Uscreen, which is
arguably the best platform for yoga teachers online to grow
(03:18):
their yoga. Business online and I'm going
to, we're going to talk a lot about marketing, business
sharing online and moving onlineand a lot of people are going to
be very interested in this topic.
So thank you for being here, Daniel.
Course, thanks for having me, Jeremy.
Yeah, so the first thing they just jump into is just people
who are teaching yoga already inperson.
(03:39):
They want to move online. They like the idea of moving
online, the freedom, the potential increase in income,
reaching more students, helping more people.
But there's some sort of block and it just doesn't happen and
they don't know why. And I talked to so many teachers
who are like this. They they want to be online.
They know it's ideal for them, but there's something stuck
(04:01):
there. So what do you think are some of
the things that could help people bridge that from the in
person to online gap? That's a great question.
Well, I think there there are a number of things that I think
get in the way in that process. One is you're going to have to
be on camera and be relatively comfortable with it, which can
(04:23):
be a big leap if you've never done it before.
And I'll come back to that one because I think that's a really
big one. I think the next thing is that
people when you're running a business or thinking about
starting even a digital business, one of the things that
happens is people get caught up in doing the the low hanging
fruit at all times. It's like what's the easiest
(04:46):
thing I can do right now that'llmake me feel like I'm working on
my business, but you're actuallynot.
And there's a lot of that. And I wouldn't, that is kind of
AI don't know if it's a universal truth or experience,
but it is very prevalent just based on the fact that like I
work with customers, you screen customers of all shapes and
(05:08):
sizes from 10 subscribers all the way to thousands of
subscribers in their membership platform.
And all of them have this problem where they're like, I'll
ask them, how do you spend your time working on your business?
And they're like, well, you know, I spend a fair amount of
time responding to emails, you know, trying to figure out what
I should do next. And and they'll just rattle off
(05:29):
a list of things. And I'm like, OK, well, if we
look at a list of priorities, where do those rank?
And they're like probably in thebottom half for the most part.
I'm like, OK, well, you know, your marketing's broken.
Why aren't you focused on figuring that out?
And they're like, because I don't know what to do.
It's really hard. And I, I don't know what to do
next or like, I have no one to help me.
And I don't know who to trust inorder to get help.
(05:51):
And that's not like exclusive tojust that area of problems.
It's the same thing when you're making that transition from
physical to digital. It's I don't know what the right
next step is. I'm not sure how I should go
about this. I have no idea what to say on
camera. I get on camera and I start
sweating and stammering and saying you just get kind of
(06:13):
locked up. And so I think figuring out how
to prioritize the actually important things, it's, I mean,
it's kind of like doing maintenance around my house.
Like there's a paint scuff on the wall right there.
There's a spot on the floor where my dog licked the wall and
licked the paint off the wall a couple weeks ago.
And I'm like, that is a higher priority to get that fixed
because it looks bad. And yet it's been there for
(06:34):
weeks because I'm like, well, let me mop the floor or let me
vacuum the dog hair. And I'm not doing these
important aesthetic improvementsthat will like if I were to try
and go sell my house, would makea much bigger difference than
there being dog hair on the floor, which anyone can fix in
an instant. So it's like, stop worrying
about the low priority stuff andlike, yeah, would it be great to
(06:55):
get everything done? Yes.
But is it more important to get the low priority stuff done or
like the high impact things? And I think if you can kind of
make that shift and force yourself to do the hard work, it
makes a big difference. Yeah, I've definitely seen that.
And as a business owner myself, this is a common question.
I've hit up against a lot of like, what do I focus on next?
(07:16):
Because a lot of teachers get into teaching and wanting like
freedom and choice and to be their own boss.
And a lot of teachers end up being independent contractors at
a studio. So they just need to show up and
teach and they choose what they teach.
They often times pick when they teach and where they teach.
But now there's just a lot of choice.
And it's way easier to just spend a few hours designing a
(07:40):
logo on Canva or just updating your bio on your website rather
than the actual things that are going to grow the business.
When we talk about growing a business, that usually is going
to involve more people finding you, more customers, more sales,
and more deepening those relationships.
(08:00):
And that's marketing. And that's a different skill.
Like a lot of yoga teachers don't learn marketing skills in
yoga trainings. So I personally had to seek out
marketing teachers and business teachers and learn to prioritize
that as much as the teaching. And I, I think you're, I totally
agree with you. It's, it's very easy to end up
(08:21):
focusing on the low hanging fruit and the insignificant
things. And then the things that
actually do grow the business, just kind of, it's like they're
not always so easy and so clear.So how do people like get
clarity of like what to focus on?
That's a great, that's a great follow up question.
I laughed when you when you saidthe designing a logo on a Canva
(08:44):
because I've done that exact thing.
Like I'm 3510 years ago, before I had kids, I used to have a lot
of free time and I was just exploring like try to build a
business from scratch. All of them failed because I was
doing these exact things. It was like, cool, I have this
great idea for a business. I'm going to go just build it
and see what happens. And I'd go get a, a logo on like
(09:06):
Upwork or fiver. And then I would go buy a domain
and then I would build a websitewith Squarespace or something.
And I'd be like, Oh, this is awesome.
And I'd send it to my friends and be like, Hey, this sounds
cool. And then I'd be like, shoot, now
what do I do? Oh, I actually like have to go
do the work. And so for people in, in the, in
the fitness industry or yoga industry, like for you trying to
(09:28):
figure out what the next steps are, it's to me, it's what makes
you uncomfortable. Like what ideas do you have that
make you uncomfortable? There's probably a good chance
there's something there that youneed to dig a little bit deeper
into. I think the second thing is
like, you can come up with an idea in a vacuum for how you're
going to do this and how you're going to approach it.
And that's fine. That's certainly one way you can
(09:50):
approach this. And people have and will
continue to be successful doing that.
However, the thing that I reallylove and I, I really feel like
the world has shifted towards islike, go get insights from an
ideal set of customers. Go figure out the people that
you want to reach or even the people in the studio that you're
currently reaching, like figure out what they consume online.
(10:11):
If you're wanting to make that shift to go online, go talk to
them. Be like, I want 30 minutes of
your time to sit. I'm going to pay for your
coffee, your smoothie, whatever,after my class.
And I just want you to tell me about what you do online.
The yoga content you consume on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok
or the newsletters that you get.What do you like?
Why do you like them? Which ones do you actually
(10:35):
currently subscribe to? And all of that is quite
literally research and data for your business that you can then
take. You could use AI to analyze all
of your notes and tell you like,okay, based on this, here's some
ideas of what you could go do tomake a difference in your
business. Now, let's say you're not going
to do that. I would advise against it
because I really think, like getting insights from your
(10:57):
audience is one of the most powerful things you can do at
any stage of your business. I talked to people who have no
business. I talked to people who are doing
$70,000 a month and have never talked to their audience.
And then they go do it and all of a sudden they're making
$100,000 a month and you're like, yeah, it was worth $30,000
a month ago. Listen to your audience and
figure that out. Yeah.
(11:18):
So I really believe heavily in doing that one first.
Another place you can do this islike social media comments.
You can go look at people who already exist on the Internet
who are making content similar to what you would want to create
and just look at what they're creating, what's getting the
most, what reels are getting most views and then figure out
why are those getting views. And then listen, you can go
(11:41):
like, it's not stealing, but like copying people is an art
form or like copying formats is an art form.
There are film makers, there aremusicians, composers,
songwriters. John Williams is one of the
greatest film composers of all time.
And there are countless like dissections on YouTube of like
the Star Wars theme actually came from classical music
(12:02):
written in the the 1600s or whatever it is.
Like great artists steal is a very common trope.
And like in this instance, go ifit's here's what I eat in the
day as a yoga instructor, There are thousands of posts like that
and people still eat it up because it's personal, it's
relatable. And go film your first one, post
(12:23):
it, look for feedback, and then do it again and go.
So go find people in your niche,look at their reels, what's
doing well, what's not, What arepeople saying in the comments
that is just as valuable as sitting across the table from
somebody who sat through one of your classes as well.
And so I really think like, start there and then use that to
build and do stuff that you're actually going to get feedback
(12:44):
from real people. Don't go do stuff that like at
this stage, you don't need to godo stuff that's going to make
you feel good because you're going to get feedback that does
not make you feel good. And that's OK.
That's part of building a business.
That's part of doing the work that you're doing is like you're
not always part of being an entrepreneur is failure.
And I have this conversation with the people using Uscreen
(13:06):
all the time. I'm like, you can't be
discouraged because we ran in a test and it didn't work because
that's like you're looking at itthe wrong way because I look at
it as like perfect. One more thing we don't, we know
that we're not going to repeat again in the future because it
didn't work for this reason and this reason.
Now let's go try the next experiment on the list that we
think will have an impact. And you've got to approach your
(13:26):
work just like that. Like not everything's going to
hit most of your stuff won't In baseball, you're if you hit the
ball 2 out of 10 times, you're doing pretty good.
You're doing pretty good. If you hit it 3 out of 10 times,
you're doing amazing. So like that is not too
dissimilar from what we're talking about here.
So I think it's finding things where you can get live tangible
(13:47):
feedback and incorporating that into what you do next is like
the best kind of next step. That's really good advice.
And I have a friend of mine who spent about nine months building
what he thought was like the perfect coaching system for his
clients and made all these beautiful PDFs and all this
(14:09):
amazing graphic design. And they do this step and that
step and all these details. And he told me he got to the end
of it after nine months and he, like, pressed enter on the last
paragraph of the thing and he just kind of sat back.
He's like, OK, I did it. Now what?
And he froze. Like it's like he didn't know
(14:33):
what to do with the thing that he's that was like the perfect
thing he was building. And first thing I thought was
this. I've, I've done that too as a
musician. I did that in the past, spent
years making the perfect album. And then it's like, well,
actually now I need to like share this with people.
I need to go play. I need to get feedback.
Like, do people actually like these songs?
(14:54):
And it's, it's an easy trap to fall into, I think in the early
stages of creating something andlike you want to create
something and make it perfect and then share it.
But what you're talking about isreally like the entrepreneurial
spirit and the energy of like, what do people actually want?
And like, try to make a, a beta version of that and start
(15:16):
building on that. And like then you're actually
building something people actually already said they want
versus like building something nobody said they wanted that you
think they might want. And then you try to somehow jam
those puzzle pieces together andit's this guy like ended up kind
of scrapping that whole thing. It's been like 5 months now.
And he just, he's not using thatthing that he spent nine months
(15:38):
building because it's not reallywhat people need that he's
interacting with. Right.
I've, I have started three businesses in the past and all
of them failed because I didn't listen to customers or just I
didn't. It's not because like they were
talking to me and I wasn't listening.
I just didn't even think about that part of the process and
using that to make the business better.
(16:00):
I was just like, this is the product I need to sell it to
people. Let me go talk to people about
the product and hope that that'sgoing to work.
And then when it didn't, I was like, why isn't this working?
This is a good product. And it was like, well, you
didn't listen, you didn't ask for feedback, you didn't improve
the product based on feedback. You didn't iterate, you didn't
try to make things better or different or, or change the way
(16:22):
you're doing. You just kept doing the same
thing, expecting different results and then wondering why
didn't this work? And now 10 years have passed and
like now I get it, but back thenI didn't.
And I if some, I wish somebody had come along and told me the
same things that I'm able to tell people now, which is like,
go get real feedback that matters and then adjust
accordingly. And you'll eventually find the
(16:42):
right people who resonate with your content or with your
approach to things, and you'll start to get some traction, and
you can build from there. Absolutely.
Yeah. I just saw a little video of
Jeff Bezos back in the early days of Amazon and they're like,
are you guys an online business?But now you're starting
distribution centers. So are you an in person
business? Are you online or in person?
(17:03):
What is it like? What are you doing?
And he said, we are relentlesslyfocused on customer
satisfaction. So if the customers are going to
benefit from us having distribution centers closer to
their location, then we're goingto build distribution centers.
And then he kept asking all these questions.
The interviewer like, but that makes you an in person business
and the thought you're an onlinebusiness.
And he's like, we are relentlessly focused on customer
(17:25):
satisfaction. If the customers wanted, that's
what we're going to do. And I love that.
And of course now Amazon's like super, super successful
business, but back then, like people were like, what is this?
What are you doing? It doesn't mean.
And didn't really think that it would be as big as they were.
So yeah, I found that to be trueas well.
It's like talk to people and, and I like your advice too, of
(17:50):
like, well, then people might say, well, I don't have a lot of
students yet, so who am I going to talk to?
And yeah, now with comments on videos and people doing similar
things on YouTube or whatever online, you can see, you know,
people leave feedback and and for a lot of yoga teachers, we
don't actually get a lot of feedback on classes.
(18:11):
Like teachers will teach a classand the feedback is always,
thank you, that was great. That's just what I needed.
I'll be back. Like it's always positive.
It's always broad like this. Maybe it's like all that back
thing helped my back a lot. But you don't, that is not
enough feedback to like really do anything like build something
or create something new with. So like what you're saying is
(18:32):
like have a deeper conversation or look at other stuff online.
If you don't have those clients to talk to, I think that's
amazing advice. Yeah, I mean, you spend $5 on a
coffee at Starbucks for that person like you, You have
tendency of 10 people in your class.
You're probably at least friendly enough with a couple of
(18:53):
them to say, hey, can we grab some coffee?
I'd love to talk to you about anidea I had and get your feedback
since you've been coming to my classes for however long or
whatever it is, and that the insights you'll get from that
are worth hundreds more than the$5 coffee that you bought for
them. Absolutely.
And then usually those people are like, well, whatever you do,
I'm signing up so. Exactly.
You got your first client. Yep, exactly.
(19:15):
And so then the next step is, well, if we're talking today
mostly about moving online, so this means that if you're going
to be online, there's a camera involved for you to be seen by
the people. So now you you've clarified, OK,
maybe Susie could really benefitfrom a prenatal training of some
(19:36):
sort or whatever the topic is doesn't matter so much.
But usually there's going to be some involvement of a camera and
you in front of a camera, not infront of a person, not in front
of a class, just you looking at the camera lens.
And I know for me, I froze up for a few years trying to do
this, like many years ago, like when I first started as, OK, I
(19:58):
want to be on YouTube, I want tobe online, got all the set up,
turn the camera on. And like, I couldn't really
breathe very deeply. I didn't know what to say.
I froze up. It was so awkward to me.
And it took me a few years to like, know how to talk to a
camera, like I'm talking to a person or a class.
So I know you've got a lot of experience with this too.
(20:20):
So what do you say to those people who are in that spot?
Yeah, that that's a, that's a extremely common 1.
I don't know of anyone who can get in in front of a camera
their first time and just feel like, yeah, this totally feels
normal. Me just talking into this dark
black circle that feels like it's sucking the life out of me.
(20:41):
That's how it feels at the start.
It does get better and it does change from there.
I used to not be on camera. I used to like I studied film
and production and in college and was like, I'm going to get
into post production or behind the scenes of production.
I have 0 desire to be in front of the camera.
(21:01):
I think I would be terrible at it.
I get way too nervous. I'm bad at public speaking.
I sweat profusely, like disgustingly so when that
happens. And I don't know that I have
anything interesting to say. And I know I'm not the only one
who thinks those exact same thoughts.
And the truth of the matter is like about sometime in my early
20s, I had the realization I waslike, the world is shifting hard
(21:26):
towards video. And this was like late 2000s,
early 2010 probably like YouTubewas really starting to pop for
for the first time, Youtubers, bloggers, all that was
happening. And I was like, man, being on
camera would be such a valuable.Like being comfortable on camera
is such a rare skill that it probably would paint pretty well
(21:50):
if I can figure out how to do this and be comfortable with it.
So I had the benefit of I was young, I had no kids and my wife
works night shifts. So three nights a week, I was
just like by myself. And I was either hang out with
friends, play with my dog, work or clean the house.
And I was like, I think out of all the options, like I spent
(22:13):
some time with friends, obviously, and, and my dog, who
who if you hear is like laying right behind me.
But the most common thing I did was work and I would just figure
out fun things to do. That's why I got into drop
shipping. It's why I started three
different businesses during thatperiod of my life, None again,
none of which were successful atthat point in my life.
But the other thing I did was like, OK, I've got camera gear.
(22:35):
I've been shooting stuff for years.
No one's home. I can't embarrass, be
embarrassed because no one's ever going to see this footage.
So I set my camera up in my living room and I hit record,
sat down in front of it and was like, I would just pick a topic.
Like it could be something I sawin the news.
It could be a funny video I saw.And I would just talk to the
camera for at least 10 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes.
(22:58):
And it was terrible. And I'm, I, I should have kept
some of that footage just to like show people that, that
like, I'm not making this up, but I was so embarrassed at the
time that like, I would take it,I would force myself to rewatch
it and I would take notes and just be absolutely brutal with
the feedback of like, why is this bad?
Like how does this compare to a Ted talk?
(23:18):
Because Ted talks at the time were really big.
I would watch Ted talks and thenI would watch my footage and be
like, got a long way to go. But based on what these people
are doing really well, here's what I'm doing really bad and
how I can do it better. I would delete the footage and
then I would go do it again. And I did that a lot like, and I
would try different things. Like I even tried to fake cry on
(23:38):
camera once, which it was as cringy as it sounds, at least it
still is to me. I don't know how it was received
back then, if anyone else ever saw that footage, but I wanted
to like go through the breadth of like what was possible
filming myself on camera. And then I started, I made a
bunch of random YouTube videos and then I did some stuff for a
(23:59):
couple different jobs. And then I ended up landing a
job at Youscreen as a YouTube creator initially.
And this was almost six years ago.
And that because I had forced myself to get comfortable on
camera, then I went and shot a video, sent it to the CEO of you
screen and he, he emailed me back.
I was like, we're looking for a YouTube creator.
Would you be interested? I was like, I wanted to get into
software. I wanted to get into the tech
(24:21):
world. And that was my foot in the door
because I'd actually just been working in marketing for almost
a decade. And I was like, I'll get a
chance to get into marketing in the tech world, but this is how
I'm going to get my foot in the door.
And it was video. And it was only because I forced
myself to get on camera and do what was really uncomfortable
and give myself brutal feedback to get better and get more
comfortable. Now I can switch it on like I'll
(24:41):
have a arts team, our creative team at Uscreen is up to like
four or five people and I'll be like, hey, we, we've got the
script. I've got to film 3 scripts
today. I'm going to go do it and I'll
knock it out in 30 minutes and I'll be done.
And I turn on the camera, hit record and I can just turn it on
at this point. It's not intimidating, it's not
scary. It's just kind of comfortable.
And a big, big, big part of that, which this and this is the
(25:04):
thing I didn't recognize like when I initially started this
process is like, you can and should envision somebody on the
other side of the lens. You should think about who this
video is for and how it's going to help them.
And that makes it a little less intimidating because if, if
you're a yoga teacher and you'reused to being in a room of 10 to
15 people or more and comfortably leading them through
(25:27):
yoga, just imagine that you're doing that and, and there's a
camera in the back of the room to help you for whatever the
purpose is. But you like the purpose of, of
you being on camera is not the camera, It's to serve the people
on the other side. And if you, a lot of people see
the camera and they lose sight of everything but that camera.
I know there's somebody that I, I know who you can turn the
(25:51):
camera on and you can just see his eyes glaze over and like he
can do it, but he's uncomfortable the whole time and
he just like struggles to get through it.
And like even with coaching, it's really hard.
And you, so you've got to like, you can't just mentally shut
down. Like don't worry that you're
looking at a lens, like I'm looking at a lens right now.
(26:12):
But I know that Jeremy's on the other side.
And then on the other side of that are a bunch of people who
are incredible yoga instructors that really are hungry for what
I have to share. And because I know that I can
provide value, I'm not concernedabout me being uncomfortable on
camera because I, I know my stuff.
And I think that's what a lot ofpeople struggle with.
It's like they're, it's almost like selling, selling to people
(26:36):
in person 1 to 1 is super uncomfortable for most people
because you're like, I have thisthing to sell.
You're a potential buyer. I need to tell you about this
thing. And that's the wrong way to
think about it. The right way to think about it
is I am coming to you and I'm not trying to sell you on you
screen, but if I was I would I would not pitch you on all the
features and all those incredible things.
What I would actually do is I would tell you about the people
(26:58):
that we've impacted, the resultsthat they've gotten, the things
that they have to say about us. And then why we're different
than any of our competitors, which is that we give a crap.
Like we, our support is known for going above and beyond.
Like I have been working hands on with customers to help them
improve their business and not really asking for, for much in
(27:19):
return. And that is like the difference
between Uscreen and other companies.
And so like that right there is already far more compelling than
if I were to come on here and belike, well, we have live
streaming, we've got apps, we'vegot community features, we've
got DMS like you can do coaching, you can do courses.
Like I could list features for days too.
But that's not the stuff that's going to resonate and make you
excited about what we have to offer.
(27:41):
It's all those other things about the evidence of who we are
and what we do and how we help that really makes it tangible
difference. And so if you can focus on that
when you're on camera and that you're serving people with that
on the other side, it's going tomake an absolute world of
difference. Yeah, a lot of the times I
imagine there's somebody, like aspecific person I'm talking to.
(28:02):
Like for a lot of yoga teachers,I'll say like who's your most
consistent student that you know, is going to be there in
every class? Oh yeah, Lauren, you know, she's
always there. OK, well, imagine Lauren is just
making a video for Lauren. That's it.
Or are you making a podcast for Lauren and it's just for her.
And if you do that, that and it will be applicable to everybody
(28:24):
else too, like because everyone else is also an individual.
So that's a really valuable thing I found.
And I've, I knew 1 teacher who spent a lot of money, a lot of
time finding her ideal customer avatar and doing like this
visualization and this whole complex process.
OK, she's this year many years old.
(28:45):
She went to this college. She has this many kids, this
many pets, all this stuff. And she's, she was very excited,
like. I got my.
Ideal customer. I know who it is and she
described this person and I knowthis teacher and I know her
students. And I was like, that doesn't
sound like any of your students though.
Like that's almost the opposite of a lot of your students.
Like her students are like all like a certain age, certain, you
(29:08):
know, all this stuff. And this, this ideal customer
she sort of thought was what it should be in her head was just
not it. And and she went this way and I
just kind of like watched her goand try to market this thing to
this ideal customer. She thought it should be for a
few months and then she it just wasn't going anywhere.
It was, she was struggling, she was frustrated, like it wasn't
(29:29):
working. And then she just went back to
this. I asked her this question like,
well, who is the, the student who's most consistently at your
class and just make it for her. And then everything started to
change after that or podcast grew or offers grew.
So that's really good advice. And I've definitely seen that
myself as well. Of like, imagine you're talking
(29:49):
to somebody on the other side. It's not just a black circle on
your camera and there's actual person there.
And then more people will relateto that and it just feels more
natural. And then another thing you
talked about there is like the modeling.
So like then you, you record yourself and then you see how
you are. You compare it to Ted Talks, you
compare it to other people. So many yoga teachers online.
(30:12):
Now you can look at other yoga videos side by side with yours.
OK, I like this, don't like that.
And it's very humbling and it's can slow you down a lot.
It's like, OK, well, I'm going to need to improve this and
that, but but also I think it's like, well, this kind of comes
back to the priority too, of like, what's the most important
(30:35):
thing there? Like if you are modeling after
somebody, doesn't matter so muchabout the lighting, the
microphone, the this like there's so many things that are
teaching a sequence, the poses you do camera angles.
How do how does a teacher listening to this like know what
they should prioritize to improve upon first on their
(30:56):
videos? Oh, that question, man.
I've been answering this question in some shape or form
for years and years and years. I, I used to be, I'm just going
to going to be very transparent and admit I used to be like a
(31:17):
freak about gear. Like I was like, I want the
best. Anytime there's new something
available, I want it. I want the best of the best
because I want the crispiness. I want the best audio.
I want the best I I used to be terrible at lighting.
I've gotten a little bit better these days, but still not great.
And to be honest, with the evidence that I've seen, it's
(31:40):
more important that you have great content than great gear.
Great content can exist with just whatever gear, but you can
have great gear and really bad content.
Really, really bad. I'm a private example of that.
I've made really, really bad content with really, really
great gear. So I I am of a mind.
(32:03):
Cameras are so good, like cameras are so good these days.
You do not have to reinvent the wheel.
I would rather you spend money on prioritizing audio,
especially as a fitness instructor and figuring that out
then I would like on a camera oreven lighting because lighting
you can figure out people are willing to forgive camera
(32:25):
quality. You have a 4K camera in your
pocket. Almost everyone does, but audio,
like bad audio is such a huge turn off in 2025, whether it's a
podcast or a video or a movie that like the audio levels are
messed up. Like I deal with that even at
home, which is crazy that in 2025, like I'll be watching a
(32:47):
movie, it'll cut to, I know mostpeople don't watch linear TV
anymore, but like if I'm watching a movie on YouTube TV
and it cuts to commercial and then all of a sudden the
commercial volume is like this high and the movie was this and
like, could we not? Like, why can you not
standardize? So audio matters way more than
you would expect. And especially for fitness
instructors, like, you don't want to hear the echo of the
(33:07):
room you want. So you want like, something
that's on you, probably close toyour mouth or a headset one, if
you can, if you can deal with that.
So like, I think just spending alittle bit of money on that is
important, but I would rather you focus on making really,
really, really good content, I think.
Yeah. Does that answer that question?
Yeah, no, I agree. And I found like many years ago,
(33:31):
I found Alan Watson. Like not really an Alan Watson.
He has a lot of recordings from like the 60s and 70s, and some
of them are just terrible quality.
But I didn't care that much like, because it's Alan Watson.
I liked his philosophy, I liked his energy.
I liked what he was sharing the content, the actual value so
much that it's like, even if it's terrible audio, it's like,
(33:52):
OK, I'm willing to to listen andI want to hear it.
But but I agree, like having great audio quality is a big,
big thing now and like very important.
But the content I would agree isthat the content is probably, if
you had to prioritize one thing,it's just actually just being a
good teacher and actually providing really good value,
(34:13):
even if it's just on your phone or whatever to start and you can
improve those things later. Yeah.
Yeah, and gear is just a, it's ablack hole of options and
opinions from people on the Internet.
Cuz inevitably you're gonna go to YouTube or wherever and
search like best camera for yogaor best audio or whatever.
And that it is an unending blackhole of video content about
(34:37):
those things, which is fine. Like there is some useful stuff,
but also you you can end up in that traffic that we talked
about earlier of like doing the low hanging, low priority stuff
that does not drive impact for your business.
And it's more important that youfocus on getting out there and
making content that gets feedback regardless of how you
shoot it, than it is like getting the gear dialed in.
(35:00):
Yeah, Is that same thing again of like actually engaging with
people versus like spending months shopping, basically
comparing microphones and lighting and all this stuff.
It's and then when you actually talk to people, you might say,
what do you think about the lighting in my video?
Like what do you mean? Or what do you think about the
(35:23):
the camera setup? Like I don't, I wasn't looking
at the video so much. I was just doing the practice,
you know. So a lot of times you'll hear
things like that when you actually talk to the people.
They don't, they don't even really care about that or think
about it. But yeah, it's a nice touch and
then, you know, a nice improvement, but it's secondary
to the actual content and the what's actually going to help
people for sure. And just be sure, like, if
(35:45):
you're going to get feedback on your content, don't show it to
like your parents. Yeah, show it to people who are
like actually in your target target demographic.
So you don't. Because like, I know if I send a
video to my parents, the most common feedback I get is it's
too dark. I can't see what's going on.
And I the music's too loud. I can't hear anything that's
being said, which is like kind of helpful feedback, but not
(36:07):
really the kind of feedback I'm looking for.
I'm actually looking for contentfeedback.
So just be smart about who you send it to and making sure that
those are people you would actually end up serving in the
long run. Because if you take feedback
from people outside of your target market, it's not actually
going to help you. Totally.
So then you touched on this already, like actually going
(36:28):
into selling something, which isif you want to grow a business,
like that's what you're doing, you're selling something.
But I think so many yoga teachers might already be like
having sweaty palms just for me,talking about the word selling.
And like, I don't like it. It's awkward.
I feel pushy. I don't want to, you know,
(36:49):
spiritual, I don't want to push people.
So sure, you've heard a lot of this for many people, many
clients and teachers online. So how do we go from, OK, you've
got this skill, you love teaching yoga, you love helping
people. You want to help people.
You've talked to an audience andlike, you've figured out what
they want. Now you've got to sell that to
(37:11):
them. And, and you've talked about it
a little bit already of like notfocusing so much on like the
benefit or like the features, but more like how it's going to
serve them. But yeah, how do people make
this transition to feeling confident and selling?
I think one of the the good places that that you can start
with that is think about how youbuy stuff.
(37:33):
Like when you're, when you stumble across an ad for
something that you're interestedin in buying and you tap it, or
maybe you swipe through the carousel of pictures on
Instagram because you're interested.
Like when you then start entering that sales process and
maybe you sign up for an e-mail list to get a discount and they
start nurturing you through that.
(37:53):
Whatever it is, the ones that are the most compelling are not
the ones that come out like swinging really hard.
In my experience, it's a, a really great product that can
speak for itself in, in, in a lot of cases, not always, but a
lot of the times they're focusedon like what does this help you
(38:16):
accomplish? What, what end result does this
get you as the consumer of this thing?
And I think if you, you have to start thinking through your
product through that lens first and foremost.
Because if, again, if you come at it from the, the vantage
point of like, I have a product and there are people who need to
buy it and I have to sell it too, because I need to make
(38:38):
money to survive or whatever it is.
And you're just like I, I walk up the best way to think about
this. And the one, the most common way
I help people understand this islike, I've been married to my
wife for 12 years. We've known each other for 14 or
15 years. We met at a baseball game in
Atlanta 15 years ago, 14 years ago, something like that.
(39:01):
If I had walked up to her that night and I was like, I think
I'm going to marry you. How do you feel about that?
And like, tried to sell and was like, you want to go on a date?
Pretty sure I would have gotten shot down.
I'm pretty sure she would have been like, this is creepy.
I don't know you. I don't know anyone.
Like I know some people who knowyou, but they don't know you
(39:22):
that well. It's going to be a no for me,
dog. Whereas my actual approach was
like, OK, let's, let's start building something here.
OK, we, we, we have some friendsin common.
What do they know about you? What do they know about me?
Let's find out where the commonalities lie.
Great. First step.
Hey, would you do you want to hang out again?
(39:44):
Like we go to school. We actually go to the same
school together. Maybe we should hang out.
Do that a few times. Actually, I really enjoy
spending time with you. You like you, you've brought me
into your loop. Let's go on a real date now.
And it just progressed from there.
Now 15 years later, 3 kids later, like we're still hanging
out and and going through it because I, I'm warmed her up to
(40:05):
the process. Like we warmed each other up to
that selling process of like, yeah, I think this is going to
work long term. Let let's let's make it
official. And a lot of the times people
approach selling and not in thatway at all.
They don't think of it as relational in any sense.
And I'm here to tell you that selling in 2025 and beyond is
more relational than it is ever been, especially when it comes
(40:29):
to selling something that is a recurring monthly charge.
If you're just selling gear, that's a one time.
Like if you're just trying to get me to buy a yoga mat from an
ad, that's a different story. That should be like really great
product, really great testimonials, really compelling
price point or positioning. Boom, you can sell that pretty
quickly to to a lot of people. If I try to sell that way on a
(40:53):
membership, that's exactly like what what I just described of
what I tried to do to what I in an alternate universe, I tried
to do with my wife and like get her to marry and be on the first
time, first time I met her and it just doesn't work.
What happens with that is that you end up with high churn
rates, your business collapses. It's a it's a whole mess, but
with something with selling in 2025, it the more relational you
(41:14):
are, the better. Like people want to know more
about you. They want to hear about you
might think you're the most boring person in the universe.
And I guarantee there are thingsabout you that I would love and
that would resonate with me. But unless you tell me about
those and find ways to share them with people, they're never
going to know and they're never going to have that attachment to
you or your business. And so finding a way to
(41:36):
communicate that in a way that'snot, I'm selling you something.
I it costs $20.00 a month and you're going to get these
things. And instead turning that into, I
have been teaching yoga for 22 years.
In those 22 years I've worked with 15,000 plus people.
And on average, those people aregoing from this sad, no
(41:59):
direction in life, a little bit overweight, not toned, not
flexible, and just completely unhappy. 2 within 12 months,
they're in the best shape of their life.
They're feeling mentally the best they've ever felt.
They're the most at peace they've ever felt.
And their their outlook on life has completely changed.
And now they're multimillionaires.
(42:20):
Whatever, whatever the selling points are of the end result of
your program is far more compelling.
And then I can say, and that's just one of 10,000 people who've
had those same results. And here's what they've said
about working with me or workingwith my content or my program or
my classes. That's much more exciting and
compelling to even consider looking into them when I list
(42:43):
off random features just becauseyou think you have to sell
something like that. It's much more compelling to
talk about who you are, where you've been, what you've done
and who you've helped, how you've helped them, and why any
of that freaking matters to anyone.
And if you can cover those things, you're in a much better
position to sell than all those other instances.
(43:03):
Yeah, this is the guy. I know somebody personally who's
in a place where she's struggling a bit financially and
she teaches like Yoga, not a Beta.
And she's pretty good at this sort of like everything you're
saying. But this thing comes up in her.
And I think a lot of teachers might relate to this is OK, it's
(43:25):
getting a little close and the money in the bank account and
like bills are coming due. And I don't starting to feel
like this urgency and scarcity and like a little bit of fear of
like now I need to make money and like putting some pressure
on this now. And I don't want to put pressure
on it. I don't want to be pushy, but I
do need to make the money and you need to make the pay the
bills. So what do you say the teachers
(43:48):
are like this? Like there is a sense of like
urgency and pressure now. Like they've got to pay their
bills this month and they've gotto make more sales, and they
don't want to become pushy or inauthentic in some way.
Yeah, that's a that's a a uniqueand interesting question.
I don't get asked a lot. My gut reaction be it's OK, it's
(44:11):
going to be OK is the initial thing like you'll figure it out.
The second more tangible and helpful thing I'll say is my gut
instinct in that case would be to like run a run a campaign or
run a sale or special promotion of some sort, right.
Because if, if you're not makingthe sales that you want on your
(44:32):
main thing, then there's a reason for that that you should
dig into when you have the time and you like, there's a problem
there that you need to diagnose,you need to face and you need to
figure out how to fix it becausethat shouldn't be the case.
Now that being said, there's problem.
There is always an element of like you can run a, a promotion.
And as an example, I have a customer who I was working with
(44:55):
at Youscreen in January and she has a big event she attends
every year with like 30,000 people in attendance.
She her, she gets a ton of additions to her e-mail list.
And previously she would do a huge annual discount, like a
huge sale on her annual subscription in January.
But every year she would see thesame pattern, which is like
(45:17):
she'd get a big spike because she's offering a big fat
discount. And then the next month things
would drop back down. So she'd have these, she has
these four big revenue spikes every year, which are like,
fine, it's helped her grow her business from like 0 to
reasonably sustainable. But my, my argument for her was
like, hey, we've got to take a longer term approach to this and
(45:39):
we can still make money without like caving and giving people a
predictable discount that like Will will condition them to not
want to pay full price because they're like, I'll just wait two
months and she'll do a sale again and I'll, I'll jump in
then because we want people to pay full price.
We want us to pay the value thatyou're worth and we want you to
(45:59):
build a more sustainable business.
So what I did with her, I was like, hey, we're going to figure
out the recurring revenue funnel.
That's fine. You have all these emails.
What we can do to nurture them in the meantime is you have this
eight week program that's a bundle of, of classes, basically
an 8 week course. And what we're going to do is
we're going to package that up, say it's $35.00 because her her
(46:23):
monthly prices, they're like it's like 15 or $19.00 a month,
I can't remember. And I was like, OK, so we're
basically giving them two monthsof content.
Let's say the price is $35 basically for this because it's
really some of her best stuff. And then we're going to, we're
going to offer a discount and run a flash sale, make it $25
for the entire thing. And that is a one time purchase.
(46:45):
They'll pay $25. They'll get 8 weeks of content.
They can excuse me, they can access it through her app.
It comes with some supporting materials, access to her via
e-mail, whatever else. And we're going to say this
deal, this thing is only available for Wednesday until
Friday at midnight. And she had previously tried to
sell this exact bundle and had gotten like 7 sales.
(47:08):
Well, we added the constraints of the time, which is an urgency
thing, which you mentioned. Urgency and scarcity are two of
the biggest levers you have whenit comes to marketing.
There's either a limited supply or a limited amount of time,
more or less. And you can use those levers
over and over and over. So we use the amount of time.
We said Friday is when this dealends.
We're not going to offer it again after that.
(47:28):
In that basically 48 hour window, we were able to drive
about 120 sales, which replaced her revenue the previous year
from the annual sale and actually was one of her best
month ever on the platform sinceshe joined New Screen, which
she's been with us for four or five years.
And after that I was like, great, now those people are
(47:49):
actually being nurtured for 8 weeks with your content and
getting to decide, OK, we've gota basically 120 warm leads
who've said to us, I like your content enough to pay for it.
Now I want to see if I can get value from it and our job in the
8 weeks to help them get as muchvalue as possible and make them
fall in love with the program and all the features and the
things that are available. And then we can come in and be
(48:09):
like, by the way, we have a membership program that you get
that program plus a dozen other plus many programs and community
and all these different featuresthat are available to them that
make it more sticky and compelling.
And we can them to membership. And while we're doing all of
that, we're gonna go fix your actual funnel and get that up
and running. So that's like a deep dive into
(48:30):
what a membership actual examplewould feel like.
So for you, I'll dial it back tothe specific takeaways.
Like I would probably consider running a short campaign that's
either limited by supply or time.
And you have to have messaging that's really resonates with
people. And that comes back to the
knowing your audience, knowing what they want and meeting them
(48:50):
with that. Because if you can have those
things dialed in and then you add time or limited kind of
supply, you're going to you're going to make more sales.
And so if you can do that with testimonials, personal stories
that resonate with people, it's going to be that much more
effective. That's great advice.
And I know this person well thather offers are not in any way
(49:13):
time bound or scarcity based or urgent.
There's no scarcity or urgency in their offer.
It's just like, here's what I doand here's what it costs and
just, you know, whoever wants itcan sign up whenever.
And then, yeah, there's less incentive, less motivation, less
reason for people to sign up. Now maybe they look at it and
(49:34):
go, it's interesting. Yeah, I want to do that, but not
right now. But if there is some level of
like authentic scarcity and urgency, like, you know, she can
only take on so many clients this month or she only has as
much time available for these sessions or whatever.
And if she just included that, yeah, that would I could see
that definitely increasing her sign ups almost overnight.
(49:57):
And just just that little thing.I've already what she already
has the great offer, but it's just adding these kind of little
things can make a huge difference.
For sure. Yeah, yeah.
And then it allows her to take some of the pressure off herself
of her own diversity about her own income and urgency of this,
because now it's like she's basically providing a better
(50:20):
offer. It's a more defined offer.
It's yeah. And it's clarifying like the
value to people because a lot oftimes people want to do it, but
they just put it off. It's like a Amazon wishlist.
It's like, yeah, I definitely want that, but I'll just wait.
I don't know why, but I'll just wait.
Yeah, I have a lot of things in my Amazon wishlist.
(50:41):
Yeah, exactly. So and then if there's a sale
though, like Amazon does like the the Amazon day or whatever,
the Prime Day. So then it's like, oh, now you
know, just for today you can buythat thing you wanted for like
half off. It's OK now.
Now you have a reason to buy it.Yep, exactly.
Yeah, so lots of great stuff. I feel like we could talk for a
(51:02):
long time here. So I really appreciate your time
and energy and your your thoughts and input.
I think lots of great marketing advice here.
I think people will find it super valuable.
Anything you want to share to toend with today?
No, I would just say you can find me on social.
My name, it's just at Daniel under score because Molly,
(51:23):
you're welcome to reach out. I love helping people with
marketing and I, I have worked with a lot of fitness people.
And if you're interested in video monetization online, EU
Screen's a great platform for that.
It's just uscreen.tv. And if you end up digging into
the funnel, make sure to let us know that you found us via this
podcast. Yeah, it's an amazing platform.
(51:46):
And you, you actually, you help people like you mentioned,
you're helping this client of Uscreen.
So you help people with their marketing in Uscreen, right?
That so yeah, my, my role has shifted a bit over the last few
months, but I'm doing more and more of that.
And I've actually spent like most of 2025 so far, like in the
weeds on calls with customers basically every day.
(52:08):
There was a point in February where I, I was like on calls all
day every day. And I've scaled it back because
we're trying to figure out like how do we scale this to more of
our customers? But there's it's just me doing
it right now. So it's like my we're basically
limited by my time. And so now I'm like, I've taken
a bunch of learnings from what we've we've done so far and it's
like, OK, well, how do we, how can I teach this to other
(52:29):
coaches basically and have them help other people that use
screen so we can make this a bitmore accessible because right
now it's relatively small scale.Very cool.
That's that's amazing that you offer that.
And obviously, like you say, theresult is like super valuable to
the clients. Yeah.
So, yeah, again, thank you, Daniel.
It's so nice to meet you and thanks for being here today.
(52:49):
Thanks for having me. You want to go deeper with your
yoga studies or to quiet mind dot yoga slash workshop and
check out my free workshop to become your own yoga teacher.
Even you practice with the 10 core competencies of yoga I
(53:10):
teach, including anatomy, philosophy, business of yoga,
sequencing and everything that goes into practicing and
teaching yoga. That's a Quiet Mind at Yoga
Slash Workshop, and if you want to practice with me, check out
the Quiet Mind Yoga membership with.
Hundreds of classes in all styles for all requests at Quiet
Mind dot Yoga.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.