8 Considerations for Re-Opening Your Studio During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Kudos to you for making it through another week of the pandemic – that in and of it itself is to be celebrated. Like you, we continue to ride the wave of emotions – some days feeling like we’re going to make it and other days pacing around the house not sure what to do next. The days are long, but we hope that you are extending yourself grace for not always being full throttle. These are tough times indeed.

The last few weeks have been fraught with uncertainty, and it’s fair to say the coming days, weeks, months and even possibly years will be too. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we are going to be able to flip a switch and just return to “normal.” 

While that does make us sad and honestly a bit stressed, we are leaning on the fact that as entrepreneurs we have experience with the unknown, and the truth that we can do hard things. You can too! 

So what’s next… well it’s time to start thinking, planning and strategizing for what re-opening looks like for your studio. No, we don’t know the exact time frame we will be back in business, but ultimately as leaders It is going to be up to US to make the hard decisions of when and how to safely re-open our studios. 

Here are a few things we are considering:

1. Safety – Clearly this is at the top of our list – the safety of our team and our clients. What protocols do we need to institute to ensure a safe working environment? Are temperature checks necessary/mandatory? Does our team need to wear masks and gloves?  What will we require of the clients?

2.  New Cleaning Protocols – How will we ensure that common-use surfaces are getting cleaned regularly – things like exercise equipment, door handles, light switches, faucets, water fountain, etc. Should we hire additional outside help? Do we need to increase the frequency of our deep cleaning from our regular 2x/week?

 3.  Social Distancing – How will we manage “social distance?” Will we have to limit the number of employees and clients in the studio? What are those limits? And how do we change how we work so we can safely be in the same space while maintaining social distance?

4. Services – What services are we able to safely re-introduce? Is it prudent to re-start our group exercise program? What about our massage services? How will we manage on-line training with in-person training? Can we utilize outdoor space for larger “groups?”

5. Pricing – Do we need to adjust pricing in any way? Will clients be comfortable paying the same amount for virtual training as in-person training (considering that the studio has more amenities than their homes)? What if clients are combining virtual training and in-person training - how will we adjust our packages?

6. Long-Term Planning – Do we need to make any adjustments to our long-term plan? How will we make up lost revenue due to the shutdown? How can we be innovative and create a necessary service for the future? Now that people are accustomed to working out at home, what changes do we need to make to remain visionary?

 7.  Money – How will we appropriately manage (and track) any funds from the EIDL or PPP loan? What other grants or sources of funding may be available now or in the future? How are we tracking on all our important key performance indicators? What additional expenses may we have to incur to continue to deliver a top-notch service?

8. Communication – How will we make sure that our policies and procedures are clearly communicated to our team, our clients and vendors so that we all remain on the same page? What if we have to make quick decisions to close down the studio? How will we communicate it?

At this point we certainly don’t have all the answers, and we are confident that this list is not exhaustive as there is still so much to learn. But what we do know is that it is going to be up to US to make many of these decisions and now is the time to start thinking about our re-opening. 

We do trust in the fact that we literally have to take one step at a time (with lots of deep breaths in between steps).

So how are you starting to plan for your studio to re-open? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Until next time…keep taking small steps forward, and keep breathing.