Last weekend, we completed the first ever Namaslay® Business and Marketing Retreat in Scottsdale, Arizona. This retreat was designed for yoga teachers and entrepreneurs who were looking to take their business and marketing to a more lucrative, creative, and knowledgable level. The retreat was packed with engaging workshops on creating successful events, elevating social content creation, and pitching and landing sponsorship deals to grow awareness and audience participation for their brands. It was the first workshop of this kind that we’ve done, and it was a great experience, so it definitely won’t be the last.
Unlike most trainings, where I bring in other yoga teachers to assist with leading classes, lectures and practices, this one was almost all on me. Our Editorial Director, LG, was set to join, and did for a bit, but had a personal emergency and had to leave after night one - before the students even arrived! That’s one lesson that I was teaching to - always expect the unexpected. You can prepare and think you’ve covered every base, but something will always surprise you! Luckily, I was able to have Thailand Namaslay® YTT Graduate Ashely join us on short notice and she was a life-saver! She helped with everything including breakfasts, photos, social media updates and overall guest relations. She was fantastic! If you’re in the Austin area, definitely seek out her classes!
Teaching at the Namaslay® Buciness and Marketing retreat for yoga teachers
The students arrived on Thursday afternoon and we had a great meditation and then began a discussion on what to expect at the training and what they hoped to achieve by attending. Then, got right into it! The next two days were filled with courses covering marketing, planning, pricing, and executing retreats, workshops and events, social media, creating passive revenue streams and a yoga pose and headshot photo shoot.
Discussion on passive revenue streams - other ways yoga teachers can earn income
Overall, it went great and I felt all the students were really inspired and eager to get started on making their businesses grow as they said goodbye. I’m so looking forward to hosting this same retreat for yoga teachers and entrepreneurs in 2019!
I also did things a little different this time by doing real-time vlogs to document how it was all going down and posted them on the YBC® Facebook page which you can see here, here and here! We also documented on Instagram Stories @ybcevents. If you’re interested in joining a future retreat similar to this one, comment below and let me know!
Swag Bags at the Namaslay® Business and Marketing Retreat
Epic swag for our attendees
A few of the things I taught in the training were how to host successful retreats and also how to land sponsorships. If you’re putting on a training, event or retreat, it’s so helpful to seek out brands you love and trust to help supply your guests with snacks or on-theme items. It’s also a great way to support small businesses and provide them exposure as well by featuring them on your social media and also getting them into the hands of their audience. At this retreat we featured awesome items from:
Lark Ellen Farm - The wonderful people at Lark Ellen Farm provided grain-free granola bites that helped our snack while they learned. Their vanilla cinnamon granola bites were delicious and are made without oats, grain, gluten, oil or preservatives.
JUNKLESS - JUNKLESS generously provided four different flavors of granola bars - cinnamon roll, peanut butter chocolate chip, chocolate chip, and strawberry. Their bars feature no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives, no hydrogenated oils, no high fructose corn syrup and are non-gmo project verified.
Kuli Kuli - We featured three different flavors of their smoothies: a dark chocolate, vanilla and a green smoothie.
Good Dee’s - We served these yummy muffins each morning and we made one batch with a chia egg instead of a real egg so our vegans could eat and enjoy them as well!
Eat Your Coffee - I can’t lie - I love my coffee and I can eat these on the go. They’ve also been featured in our Mantra Boxes and have 1 cup of coffee in every bar. We offered a mix of flavors to include fudgy mocha latte, peanut butter mocha and salted carmel macchiato.
Emmy’s Organics - If you haven’t tried Emmy’s Organics coconut cookies then you need to! They are vegan, gluten free and non-gmo, and are so delicious. We offered a few different flavors including dark cacao, peanut butter, chocolate chip and vanilla bean.
The Healing Hippy - We included The Healing Hippy sanitizing spray but they also have sunscreen, natural deodorants and healing salve that we’d love to try too!
Swanson Health’s Mellow Mag - Swanson Health offered their calming Mellow Mag raspberry lemonade packets that are also gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, and non-GMO.
Clever Yoga - Students also received a Clever Yoga strap that can be used for practice or for mat carrying - they’re non-toxic and 100% cotton and seven colors.
Sweaty Betty - We also included Sweaty Betty’s pilates sports socks as well as a fun water bottle too!
Thank you so much to our sponsors, and thank you so much to our participants! We’ll be sharing blog posts about their progress in the future, so stay tuned for those!