Today we’d like to introduce you to Shanna Lee.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Shanna. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I had been working in corporate marketing and sales for over 10 years, and half of that time I had been practicing yoga. I had taken all the various classes and workshops and the opportunity to take teacher training came about. I signed up, having no desire to teach yoga but just interested in doing another “thing.” Teacher training ended up being a huge undertaking that taught me a lot about myself and helped me identify what I wanted to do with my life. I had long been bored with my career, feeling like I wasn’t doing something that really contributed to society in a meaningful way, but other than moving from corporate to non-profit work I didn’t really have a lot of ideas how to change that.
When it came time for the certification aspect of the training, they required us to teach a number of practice classes and get feedback from participants. Naturally, I asked my friends and coworkers to let me practice teaching with them, and to my surprise everyone loved it. Especially those in my office who had only taken my classes to help me out, those who vowed they’d never be caught dead in stretchy pants.
When I saw the difference it made for people in the office to experience a little zen in their work day, a light bulb went off. Companies are looking for ways to increase employee engagement, and employees are more stressed out than ever. Chair massages are great, but the benefits are short lived. Teaching yoga, posture and stress reducing breath techniques to people gives them something they can use again and again. It’s something they can’t get from a gym membership.
I finished my certification and kept up the office classes. As word spread, my clients and friends began to ask me to teach in their offices, and I could see a ripple effect of this positive experience making people enjoy work more, relate to one another better. It wasn’t long until I realized the work I was doing for fun was more fulfilling than my actual job, and I made the decision to jump into it with both feet. I left my corporate job to focus fully on building a corporate yoga practice, but today it’s grown into so much more than that.
Initially I was going in and teaching traditional yoga classes like you’d have in a studio. Today that’s rare. Most of my clients have never seen a yoga mat, they don’t know the lingo, and they all love to tell me they can’t touch their toes. I work with them in business attire, at their desks or in a conference room, making it much more accessible to those who would be hesitant to try it otherwise. I do a lot of workshops and training classes that incorporate yoga philosophy (and some poses!) but more akin to a business presentation. Having spent 10 + years in professional services/consulting firms gives me a great background to be able to deliver this type of content to a room full of say, accountants. In a language and style that makes sense to them, rather than walking in and demanding everyone get on a mat and do warrior one.
It’s really been interesting to see how people respond, and getting calls from people I don’t know who found me on the internet. I get calls from teachers wanting to join the team, and every time I just think to myself, “how did this happen?”
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think anyone will tell you that starting a business is hard. I never had a business plan, I just had an idea that if one out of every 10 companies in Dallas cared enough about their employees to provide some sort of wellness program I could keep myself busy, and eventually grow to a place that would allow me to bring on additional staff to expand, even potentially into other markets. There are a lot of companies here! And most of those have additional offices elsewhere- so it’s an organic way to expand and grow the business.
Probably the biggest challenge with most new businesses is the financial aspect. I am not a tech startup so no one’s writing me a big check to launch my product. Luckily my overhead is relatively low in that we don’t have a physical space, because we do everything on the client site – so that’s helpful. But certainly it would have been easier to start with a lump of cash to do a big fun ad campaign or something like that to spread awareness and grow more quickly. Instead, everything has been really grassroots, which I guess is fitting for a yoga based business.
Outside of that, the biggest challenge has just been doing things I’ve never dealt with before, like the finance side of the business or administrative things like invoicing and record keeping. Even from a marketing perspective – I spent my entire career in marketing, but more on the strategy side – I am not a designer and I don’t know how to code, so managing the website and having handouts to send to clients would usually have been something I’d outsource to an agency in my corporate life. But as a start-up (with no financial backing) there’s not a lot of budget for those things. I’ve been very fortunate to have great friends who have helped out or recommended vendors that were able to work with me.
I think the biggest challenge overall is just having patience and understanding that great businesses do not happen overnight. I see other startups that seem to come out of nowhere and then they’re everywhere! I feel like I question myself like, “do I have what it takes to do this? What makes me think I can start a business? I don’t even have an MBA!” Haha! Sometimes I think about the income I would have if I was still in corporate, and each year that I’m not matching that number in my business I feel a sting in my bank account – but then I realize that I could be in my job for 10 more years and still only realistically reach a certain salary, but if I’m able to build a scalable business the sky is the limit!
That said, the experience I have each time I leave a client or get feedback that says a CubeFit Yoga session had a positive effect on the culture of an organization I know that regardless of the financial aspect, I am doing exactly what I set out to do – create something that changes the world around me for the better.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the CubeFit Yoga story. Tell us more about the business.
CubeFit Yoga provides clients with alternatives for their corporate wellness programs. Most companies buy gym memberships that never get used, or bring in chair massage as a quarterly treat. We work with clients to identify their objectives, whether that be team building activities, education or just a nice break from the day.
I work individually with each client to ensure the objectives you have for their organization are met and we’re on target with the right message for their group. Men, women, young, old, warehouse workers and buttoned up bankers – everyone needs (and appreciates) a little self-care in the workplace.
My clients are typically progressive companies that emphasize and prioritize employee wellbeing. We can integrate into existing corporate wellness programs or help a company start one from scratch. It’s not just for employees, we also have clients who will set up a program as client appreciation or as an add on to an event they are hosting. Our classes include traditional yoga, boardroom yoga (you can wear your business pants and don’t have to get on the floor!), meditation (real, practical tips for reducing stress and increasing focus – no weird chants or new age mumbo jumbo!), to workshops on topics like mindfulness in the workplace training, self-care for entrepreneurs.
More and more people are realizing the benefits of mindfulness, meditation and movement, and we’re trying to make it more accessible for the people who need it most – the ones sitting behind a desk 10+ hours a day!
Contact Info:
- Address: 3419 Westminster #352-G Dallas TX 75205
- Website: www.cubefityoga.com
- Phone: 214-735-6623
- Email: shanna@cubefityoga.com
- Instagram: @cubefit_yoga
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cubefityoga/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/cubefit_yoga
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