So we closed one of our businesses...

As a business owner, we have to make loads of decisions every single day. Some of these decisions are small, but sometimes they are big, scary decisions!

In today's Podcast, Amanda & Nathan discuss their thought process and reasoning behind the BIG decision they made at the end of last term to close one of their businesses.

We hope that today's episode gives you some food for thought on some parts of your business and helps you make better business decisions going forward!

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Show Transcription: 

Amanda Barr
Well, hello, friends, happy Monday.

Nathan Barr
Hello, everybody. Happy Monday. Hope you've had an amazing weekend.

Amanda Barr
Yeah, Nathan and I are just back from our two weeks in Thailand, which has been so lovely. We needed some time to rest and recharge

Nathan Barr
and get out of the New South Wales cold at the moment and rain, most definitely

Amanda Barr
and take some time with our family, which has been so so lovely. But we have some big news we wanted to share with you today. So we wanted to tell you all a little bit about a business that we have closed. And, you know, that might come as a bit of a surprise to you, because you may not even know that we own another business.

Nathan Barr
I do mention that I think we do talk about a little bit sometimes. But it is something that we do sort of here is a little bit has it been a little bit on the backburner? I guess and that we don't bring front and center a lot in our discussions around dance principles united and everything to do with it, I guess.

Amanda Barr
Yes. So tomorrow for us starts the first day of term one. And we made the call, obviously, last term and let all of our students know that we weren't continuing operating our tutoring company switched on education, which we've had now for seven years and a half.

Nathan Barr
Yeah. So it's very sad of 2015 when we when we went all in? Yeah, that was when we started that

Amanda Barr
one. Yep. So it's been a long time. And it's been a business that we've had, you know, running in the background for quite a while it was a comp complimentary business to our studio. But we have made a big call to close it. So tomorrow, we're starting without that business. So we thought we'd share a little bit about what happened, why we made that decision, why we decided just to close it and not to sell it or anything like that. And yeah, all the behind the scenes, we thought you might be a little bit interested in that.

Nathan Barr
And I think there's a lot of, I guess parallels and lessons, I think that people will be able to take out into their own businesses and their own studios to help them maybe make some decisions not closing your business by any means, but help help make better business decisions. We think, for sure.

Amanda Barr
So let's take you back to the beginning of switched on education, our tutoring company, as we said, we've had for seven and a half years. So what happened the beginning of 2015? Well, the end of 2014, we decided to open a second dance studio, second dance studio in Shellharbour.

Nathan Barr
It's about 10 or 15 minutes north, we had our original studio in clamor. And there was a rapidly growing area about 10 or 15 minutes north called Shellharbour. Yes. And we saw an incredible property, come up for sale up there. And we thought, you know, we'd like like, we always say to everybody to do, we'd looked into it, we ran the numbers, and we decided to go all in everything we

Amanda Barr
had. This was literally our life savings. It's a huge building, it was a lot of money for us at the time. We were in our 20s at the time, we were still we were still building our house, our dream house, which we thought we'd spend all of our money on. And then we decided to buy this as well. So it was a huge thing for us. And we thought, okay, you know what, we can do it, we can make this work. We know that, you know, our studio and climber was, you know, flourishing, we thought this is going to be amazing for our business. We can totally do this. I already had one daughter while he was way, way

Nathan Barr
out, he was about what 18 months old at the time. Yes. And we

Amanda Barr
thought, Look, we're going to do this, we're going to put off having another baby so that we can be completely focused on the business. We signed the contracts to purchase this property. And funnily enough, I found out I was pregnant that night or the next was the next day.

Nathan Barr
There wasn't we went for a celebratory drink in Shanghai. Yep. And you thought the champagne tastes a bit funny.

Amanda Barr
And little did I know that I was pregnant with JJ, who was doing the March after we were due to open in February of course,

Nathan Barr
and obviously like extensive renovations during November, December, January to get everything ready to go for the new year and everything like that. So it was going to be it was going to be a huge year. So at the time in 2014 I was still a school teacher. So my background, as a lot of you know, I'm a bit of a math nerd and I was a maths high school teacher. And so I was still teaching at a school that I was I really enjoyed teaching that was is a great great group of people to work or work with. But come the end of that year, especially with Gigi ping during the march and having all this stuff to do at the start of 2015, I decided to take a year's leave without pay, obviously, to help and support Amanda, but also knowing that I was going to be required to do a lot of work, especially the first six, six months of that year.

Amanda Barr
And Nathan had had a big interested in the studio, he had always done a lot of work behind the scenes, and was thinking that he might like to grow that role, as well as the plan was for you to be a stay at home dad. And that didn't really work out so well that never actually eventuated he wanted to get in and do the work and the business, which he has been amazing as well, obviously, our businesses, all of our businesses have grown so much with having Nathan there. But we decided at the time, obviously money was tight, we were having this new premises, we had this huge studio, which there was no way we were filling all the rooms,

Nathan Barr
or space with dance studios. Yeah,

Amanda Barr
it was never going to happen. And like it still hasn't, we've still got so much space in that building. It's a huge building, we've got six very large dance studios, and we've still got heaps and heaps of room to build so many more. But you know, we don't need that many. So we decided to open this tutoring company, obviously with Nathan's background in education being a maths teacher, we thought that it would work really, really well together. And to be honest, we needed the money. Oh, absolutely. Like,

Nathan Barr
you know, when you, like we said pushed all our chips in, I just given up my job as a teacher on the youth leave without pay. And I had to obviously step back from things she was doing at the studio. So we needed to employ more staff. So money was really, really tight, because it was a calculated risk. Yeah, whenever you anything in life, but especially in business a little bit, you need to take some risks to get that reward at the end. And that's what we were doing, we're taking that calculated risks. But that meant we needed to make as much cash as possible, especially over those first six to 12 months to make to make sure that we were going to that that risk was going to pay off and we're gonna start seeing the rewards. So with all that extra space, it was essentially like I think our thinking at the time was basically it's a rent free business and any tutoring that I can do, and we also bought a primary and an English tutor on as well. Any money that we can be bringing in is going to help immensely.

Amanda Barr
Yeah, for sure. And it did don't get us wrong. It definitely, definitely did. And it's been a great business for us. You know, it's it's been really successful. And it's been a great way we run it in conjunction with our dance classes. And I know there's other studio owners that do similar things with different parts of their business, for example, they might run singing classes, or, you know, drama classes or whatever to us, shooting was exactly the same. We did work under a different business name, switch on education, however, the staff answered the phones and took the inquiries. All of our admin team were billed through the same system, but instead of enrolling in ballet, grade two, they were enrolling in masse for class or whatever that was, you know, we paid our staff are the same way or the money went the same way. So basically, it was a different stream of classes for us.

Nathan Barr
Yeah, absolutely. And it was, yeah, something like medicine, like everything was a wheel. All the classes went through Jackrabbit. And yeah, we could, okay, because of how our businesses are set up all the payroll and everything just ran straight through it. So it was yeah, it was nice. It was simple from that side of things. Yeah, for

Amanda Barr
sure. So where it got to, you know, over the seven and a half years, you know, at our highest point, we had four staff working for us. We were generally doing about 100,000 in revenue, which was mainly percent, a very high percentage of profit because we had no rent to pay. Of course, Nathan was still doing up until last term, a lot of the teaching himself. You were probably teaching, he had cut it back a little bit 10 hours or something a week. He had cut it back for maybe about 20. So he was still teaching a lot of the classes himself. So yeah, the profit was great on it.

Nathan Barr
Yeah, absolutely. And that's, you know, it has been but then we sort of got to the point where, even though the profit was great on it, as we've needed to, you know, now that we've got our three lovely daughters, we've started to have to look at things about us being at home a bit more, as everybody knows being a dance studio owner, or tutoring is the same sort of timeframe as dance studios. I was going my classes were starting at that sort of 330 to a 345 mark and sometimes the tolls are finishing at 838 45. So similar type of hours, and as our girls get a little bit older now we're realizing that we need to be at home a little More. Yeah, for

Amanda Barr
sure. So, you know, we mentioned in the intro that you may not have ever heard us talk about this business. And I guess that's the point. That's where the problem lies. You haven't heard us talk about it? Yes, because we're not that passionate about it. And we haven't been for a long time to be completely honest still.

Nathan Barr
Yeah. And that's the thing, like, even though, again, maybe some parallels with a lot of people with studio owners as dance teachers, not mean, what not mean to blow my own horn a little bit, but I am a very good maths teacher. And the actual teaching of maths of those classes is very, very easy to me. So it was one of those things that I've sort of been running on autopilot form from by side of it for maybe the last six to 12 months, a little bit with some of the classes there. I've had an incredible staff over the last six to 12 months, which is one of the possibly one of the reasons I've maybe kept the going an extra little bit longer than than I have, just because those my incredible staff made it so easy for me. They just sort of kept things ticking over on their end on the primary and the English side of things. And that sort of made it I guess, comfortable for me. But comfortable is not always good.

Amanda Barr
No, definitely not. And even though it's still been turning over really. asset, our most valuable asset, which is time, time and headspace, I feel like sometimes even things that don't take huge amounts of time, they take up a lot of headspace. And you know, to us, we've made the decision that, you know, the time that it takes us in this business is no longer worth it for us, you know, what could we do with more time on our hands and more headspace and you know, to do? Like we don't know yet, who knows. But we do plan on reinvesting that time into our other businesses, our other two businesses, our studio and dance principles united. And we know that by doing something that we're super passionate about, we have to reap amazing rewards.

Nathan Barr
Absolutely. And again, yeah, just like it wasn't that first time putting all the chips in like, again, it's a calculated risk. But especially, you know, with all due respect to the lovely Amanda, she doesn't do a lot with education. It's basically all me and but I know, as we've got these other business things going at the moment, that if I can take those sort of what, what am I probably now like 10 to 15 hours a week away, and put that into operations of our other businesses, that there's a far greater like, even if you just break it down to $1 amount per hour, what I'm earning at that dollar amount per hour from the tutoring. I know that by investing that time and that headspace, like Amanda said, into our other businesses at the moment, I'm gonna get a far greater return per hour on that. Well, let's say hmm, check back we'll do another podcast and talk.

Amanda Barr
No, but I'm sure it is. And, you know, we're all like that. Sometimes I think, you know, we get comfortable and for sure we've gotten comfortable taking that extra additional revenue. It's nice. Let's, let's be honest, it it's nice. Yeah.

Nathan Barr
And there's got to be a difference between revenue and profit as well is, which is what we say with a lot of a lot of our clients that we work with. In this case, like we understand at the start, it was because there's like, essentially, there's it's a rent free rent free business. Yeah. So basically, majority of what we're taking in was profit.

Amanda Barr
Yeah, for sure. But and we've gotten comfortable with that extra money, but we're decided to, you know, take another calculated risk, and go without that, because we know that if we put our time and energy into something else, we know we can make it great. But we do just need a little bit more time on our hands, for our businesses sake, and also for our family sake as well.

Nathan Barr
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, like I said, at the start where we see or where I feel like I see this in dance studios a lot. Like I mentioned that I kept going because of the incredible staff that I had working with me. And sometimes we see this, you know, obviously not shutting your whole business, but perhaps it's a stream of classes in your studio. Yeah, lots of time we see studios that have maybe started a stream of classes or a specific program for an incredible staff member, or for a student or for a student. Yeah, absolutely. And then maybe that staff member who was amazing has moved on to bigger and better things a lot of the times, and you just kept that stream of classes running, you couldn't quite remember what like if you didn't quite line up when they left. Oh, hang on. I was only doing that really because they were so amazing at it. And then that thing was that was the passion project of that amazing staff member. Now it becomes a massive drag and a massive burden on you. And you might not realize it. And even though Yeah, the money still coming in that the amount of time and headspace that it is taking up with a lot of studio owners. It's just not worth all of the time.

Amanda Barr
So you know, that's why we thought we might share this story with you because you know, perhaps it resonates with you, maybe you're doing something that doesn't light you up either as much as it used to. Or maybe it never did. Maybe as Nathan said, it was something that you started for a staff member or for a student who requested it. Or maybe it was just to make extra money at the time that you need it. You know? Do you just keep it going? Just because? Or do you use that time, that energy, that space to develop something new that you are super passionate about? Maybe something to think about? Maybe you do, maybe you don't? And it depends what sort of, you know, risk analysis you have, but something to definitely keep thinking about every time you're doing a project and like, does this light you up? Does this still get you excited every single day, because I am such a big believer on everything in your business should light you up and excites you, you know, I don't want to work a nine to five corporate job, because that would bore me and most of you are entrepreneurs, you're self employed, because you're the same, you want an exciting life and you want a more than just average life. And, you know, I think it's so important to really not just get stuck in a rut with our businesses, and to really constantly reflect on, you know, are you doing this? Because you're super passionate about it? Does it make your heart sing? Does it light you up? Or are you just doing it just because?

Nathan Barr
Yep, exactly. And this is something is as we sort of invested in ourselves and in the coaches that we work with, and things like that, that we learn more and more about, it's something that we talk about a lot, is that the scarcity mindset that we know a lot of people have, and it's you know, what if like, what if I close that class, and and I don't get as much money in? But you know, but what if you close that class, and then you make 10 times more? Like just that? Yeah, that scarcity mindset thinking or worrying about all the negatives, rather than focusing on the positives? And what could what you could do?

Amanda Barr
And the possibilities? Yeah, exactly. And the endless possibilities that sometimes that time and that energy open up for you. So we're super excited to move forward with

Nathan Barr
this. Actually, I do feel like there's a bit of a wait a bit of a weight lifted, and I'm really, really excited to get back into tomorrow.

Amanda Barr
Yeah, definitely. We're starting turn three tomorrow. Nathan won't be teaching at nights anymore, because he is no dance teacher, let me tell you that. And so he gets the you know, the nights off is in the studio still sometimes. But you know, a little bit more nights off and having that energy to put it into something else, which we're super excited about. Hope this, you know, resonated with you a little bit, let us know if it was something that kind of, you know, made you tick over and think, hmm, I really need to reevaluate that in my business as well. Or at least hopefully you got a little story out of it. If you liked today's podcast, it would mean the world to us if you would leave a comment. Or, you know, press that little subscribe button isn't called a Subscribe button.

Nathan Barr
Yeah, it's like, I'm very excited that manda does this because after she records every podcast, I'm like, can you please please, please tell them to make sure that they go and like so I think on Apples. It's like the little tick, or the little plus on Spotify.

Amanda Barr
That would mean the world to us. It helps us be found by more people. And yeah, shows us that you appreciate the content we're putting out. So I hope you have a amazing week. Give us a message on Instagram if you have any comments or anything you want to run past us. But yeah, thanks so much. We can't wait to chat to you again soon.

Nathan Barr
Thanks, everybody.