Run by founder Joan Gibbs for more than 20 years, Acacia School of Dance provides dance classes to people of all ages, welcoming them to “our community for friendship, improved fitness and releasing their stress.”
Indicating that surviving and recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 lockdowns and increasing her business skills and confidence were priorities, Joan also needed to understand how to publicise and market her services on a limited budget.
Before the programme, Joan felt lacking in skills and confidence in pricing her services, as well as with marketing and communications. Covid-19 meant she had lost her clients, so there was a substantial dip in income. Although she had moved her classes online, there were considerable challenges for teaching dance.
As a result of the business planning sessions and as part of an on-going buildings and staffing review, they are looking to rewrite both their five-year business and marketing plans, together with reviewing and integrating the retail and merchandising, and developing an online shop.
Building on the learning from Prosper North, they are now looking at wide range external partners as long-term relationships rather than one offs. These include numerous small community partnerships linked to museums, CICs delivering education, catering and training, Marketing Cheshire to get the message out and the Bank of America, who are giving advice on customer relationship management.
Richard gained a great deal from his involvement in Prosper North. It gave him the confidence to take forward his role, support the change process, develop thinking around the ambitions for his service within the authority and the community, and make the work with partners a reality. ‘Maybe I steered the ship just a degree.’
“We'd be well-known locally so anyone who thought of dance classes would know where to go. We'd be running classes to help older/retired people and those with special needs that people of all income levels could access, as well as high-standard classes for serious dancers. We'd be more involved with performances and activities in the local community - charity, amateur and professional. We'd be teaching teachers. We'd have at least one other teacher and other paid help for reception/admin roles etc., and enough income to be able to choose from a variety of premises or improve those with a lower fee.”
Joan was matched with business coach Nat Harrison. In her three 1:1 sessions they focused on practical strategies to enable Joan to better promote her business online, and connect with potential clients locally. This included knowledge sharing to improve the visibility of her website, connect and communicate via Facebook and engage with local parents’ groups.
Joan also attended 2 of the 3 Skills and Networking events. Both these and the 1:1 support Joan found extremely effective, with her stating, “Being held to account was really helpful when I wasn’t feeling confident.”
In terms of skills and confidence, Joan went from scoring herself 0 out of 5 for marketing and sales, PR and publicity and digital/the web, to scoring 5 out of 5. Joan told us, “It was useful having a oneto-one advisor to help with digital skills I just didn’t have. It was also good having someone to spot mental blocks.”
Because of the programme, Joan feels her business is more resilient: