One thing we love about the Move community is the support and help that our instructors show for each other. Knowledge, skills, experiences and deep personal insights are always being shared around.
During summer, this supportive attitude shows itself even more. Holidays mean that regular customers might need a different class to keep their routine going, and instructors may need a sub to step in. And they do!
Continuing the theme of collaboration, this month’s featured partners are a pair of friends who double up as work buddies too. Kate and Tiff work together as Starting Out Somewhere, as individual instructors and as part of the team at HotPod Yoga in Bristol. Phew!
For us, they really embody the MoveGB community spirit we’ve mentioned above and are successfully using their own partnership as a platform to grow their own profiles and those of their collaborators. MoveFlash nipped down to one of their classes to get the skinny:
How teamwork makes the dream work!
Why did you decide to work together?
We first became friends long before either of us had any qualifications in the health and fitness industry – we found a mutual love of moving our bodies and inspired each other to go to classes and try new things.
After endless lunchtime chats about how intimidating the world of exercising can be, we decided that it would be great to be able to share the supportive fitness friendship that we had found with other people like us.
A year later, we’d started gaining qualifications and Starting Out Somewhere was born!
How do you complement each other?
We’re very similar in lots of ways and share the same attitudes towards training and life in general, which is so helpful when it comes to working together!
We’re also lucky in that we balance each other out – Kate’s weakness is Tiff’s strength, and vice versa. We never feel as though we’re competing with each other – more that we’re stronger together!
What benefits (practical, financial or emotional!) does working together bring to your business?
So many benefits! Mostly that we have a better skillset combined than alone, so we achieve way more than we would do separately.
Tiff’s great at coming up with ideas, for example, which Kate moderates with a dose of reality – we joke about that one a lot! We also are keen to promote each other, and will often include each other in various work opportunities that come up.
Not only does this mean that we both get to benefit from the opportunity, but it’s also fab to get to share the workload with a friend, and support each other through new challenges.
How has being part of a partnership helped you develop as a mind-body expert?
Having someone around who shares your vibe and is keen to learn has helped us both so much. We have lots of discussions about books, podcasts and new things that we’ve learnt which has helped so much to increase our knowledge base.
Even if we’re hanging out socially, we’ll often ask each other for advice and opinions about our teaching and classes – we help each other to improve constantly. Talking is very much our strong point!
Do you think the mind-body community is collaborative generally? If so, why is that?
We really do – we feel so thankful that we’ve met so many lovely supportive people in this community, especially in Bristol, where we’re based.
We think the key is that people are starting to realise that everyone has their own unique approach to bring to the table – by collaborating, rather than competing, we can all spread our message further and enjoy ourselves along the way. We’ve met lots of other fitness professionals who share this feeling, and it’s very inspiring.
What you advise to any instructors looking to collaborate with like-minds?
As our friendship came before our partnership, we’d recommend starting there. Go to fitness or yoga classes in your area, get chatting to people and find those who have similar ideas to you. It can be daunting to put yourself out there, but once you find others with the same goals, it suddenly becomes so much easier to achieve them.
Two minds are better than one, as they say – and as we say, everyone starts out somewhere!
Do you attend other classes away from your own? Do you find them mutually beneficial?
The best part about the community of people that we’ve found is that we’re all so supportive of each other – Tiff and I regularly go to activities and classes held by other fitness professionals in our area and we love recommending them to our own customers and seeing them go and enjoy them for themselves.
The key is to avoid that ‘competition’ mindset – if clients like you and what you offer, then they’ll always come back to your classes, and you might have helped them to find a new activity to add into their routine that will bring them confidence and happiness, too.
It also goes both ways – we often have people come to us who say that they’ve heard about us from another exercise instructor. The more you can connect with like-minded colleagues in your area, the more visible you all become!
Teamwork really makes the dream work. Push competitiveness to the side and embrace collaboration and community within the fitness sphere! It can prove to be incredibly beneficial to all involved, and help everyone expand their skills and business.
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