01:43 – Heidi’s yoga instructional life pre-Covid

05:46 – Taking a crash course in Zoom and home studio setup

08:07 – Creating a manual email sales funnel

10:01 – A way to see your Clients while teaching

11:08 – Response to the wide-cast email sales funnel

14:57 – Setting up a studio on a budget

16:53 – YouTube channel walk through

21:47 – Things to do differently next time

29:02 – Summary

Click the “Connect” tab to browse YouTube link …

YouTube Channel:  www.youtube.com/yogawithheidi

Jason Bavington (00:02):

Hey everyone. It’s Jason with DUX — Your Local City Guide. And welcome back to another episode of our video blogs. Now we’ve been speaking to businesses. We’ve been speaking to organizations. We’ve been speaking to a variety of different kinds of entities out there. And today it’s my pleasure to speak and introduce you guys to Heidi Lichte of Yoga with Heidi. Hey Heidi!

Heidi Lichte (00:24):

Hello! Hi, Jason. Good to see you.

Jason Bavington (00:26):

How’s it going?

Heidi Lichte (00:26):

It’s going. It’s strangely, with all that’s going on, it’s going well.

Jason Bavington (00:32):

Yeah, it is kind of bizarre. Probably one thing that you have great going for you, being, you know, us here in Canada, just outside Toronto and you down there in Phoenix, Arizona, it’s not going to snow, like it might snow here this weekend, right? Like the weather is probably pretty decent?

Heidi Lichte (00:47):

It’s actually, we’re already getting pretty hot here. So we’re hitting over the hundred degree or near hundred degree mark.

Jason Bavington (00:55):

Wow.

Heidi Lichte (00:55):

So now our outdoor walks are usually earlier in the morning or at sunset. But the Spring, our Spring really happens from late February, if we’re lucky, into the beginning of May. And we might have a couple other what we consider “cooldowns”, but maybe not.

Jason Bavington (01:14):

And here wer’re trying to break single digits in Celsius, which is like somewhere in the 60’s, I think? 50’s 60’s? So, you know, once we hit 70, everyone’s going to be on shorts and we’re going to be on patios, you know, if the patios are open again.

Heidi Lichte (01:25):

Yeah. But yes, we’ve been very lucky through the beginning of this, that the weather was incredible for us to get out and about just in our neighbourhood, just for walks and things.

Jason Bavington (01:39):

Helps make things easier for sure.

Heidi Lichte (01:41):

Yeah, for sure.

Jason Bavington (01:43):

So yeah. Tell me a little bit about Yoga with Heidi and, you know, what life looked like in your yoga life, pre-Covid and when life was more relatively normal?

Heidi Lichte (01:52):

Yes. So my life in yoga, I’ve been teaching over 20 years now, as a full-time yoga teacher. I have a home studio that I teach at in Phoenix, that’s been in the Valley 37 years and that’s Desert Song Healing Arts Center. So they do yoga, massage and Tai Chi and pilates and things, but yoga is the main focus. And then I have my personal business, Yoga with Heidi, where I’m also doing private classes, small group classes, a fair amount of corporate yoga. I taught in schools for quite a while. So my normal day would basically be me driving to different locations. And I bring props. I bring a suitcase full of yoga blocks and a backpack with my belts in it. And other props as well, if needed. And then I show up onsite.

Heidi Lichte (02:51):

Some of the places I teach at some of our businesses here, Hospice of the Valley, I’ve taught for them for years. Their admin people, nurses, some of their volunteers, USAA, the water folks here. So CIP is one of the groups and PXAO is another group. So I’m all over the Valley. So I try not to go beyond a 30 minute drive. It’s a busy week. And a lot of that involves a fair amount of driving and getting ready to head out at the right time. And then working with different groups. Some, you know, some people pay straight out. Some people it’s the company pays and sometimes it’s a combo. So there’s always a little bit of admin work that I’m doing as well. And, you know, the classes run out when I’m not here at home when, before COVID would be anywhere from 30 minute classes to 1 hour and a half classes.

Heidi Lichte (03:45):

And so I was teaching like 8 to 10 a week and that felt pretty good. In my past I’ve been up to 17 a week.

Jason Bavington (03:52):

Wow.

Heidi Lichte (03:53):

Yeah. That was pretty busy. That was an out-of-balance yoga teacher. That’s what that was. But yeah, so it was, you know, it was seeing people and loving seeing the same people. I got to build relationships with folks, see how they’re doing from week to week. I got to check in with them in person and obviously see them in their work and their poses, answer questions right on the spot. My students like to give me hugs. So there was, you know, handshakes, hugs, checking in. Also knowing more just about their lives and what’s going on with them. So, it was a wonderful and it still is, but it was just a wonderful connection as a yoga teacher. You have kind of this personal side relationship with them and then me as the yoga teacher as well.

Jason Bavington (04:41):

Right. And then Covid came along and threw everyone for a loop. So all those places you went to visit shutdown, I would assume.

Heidi Lichte (04:49):

In fact, I kind of shut down my classes before they shut down. Part of that was, we have a professional guidelines group and they had sent out something suggesting that in-person classes cease, and, because in yoga you’re not only in close quarters, but you, I had even for weeks before stopped doing any hands. I don’t do a lot of adjustments, but just even any touch-oriented, I had stopped that even earlier. A lot of my populace that I teach is between 60 and 80 years old. So I was already really watching out for what was going on before the sort of lockdown occurred. So I was probably a week early from when my businesses that I was working at also sent people home, if they could. So only required personnel were there. And so then I just got to work thinking, okay, I’ve been interested in having an online platform to teach some classes.

Heidi Lichte (05:56):

I didn’t know how that would look. I thought maybe I’d record them and then, you know, set up something to provide classes. And then I thought, okay, so I’ve heard of this thing called Zoom and I’m going to go on a very steep learning curve. And I just dove in. So I looked at, and I had help from cohorts of mine and other people that I work with, they were sending me information. I had some friends that had done some online stuff. So they had some suggestions like how to angle the camera and how to set up. I YouTube’d a lot of stuff to find out, you know, how can I kind of set up without any lighting experience or not really a huge amount of comfort or experience of talking to a camera. What do I do with that? How do I improve sound? You know, what’s the whole setup.

Heidi Lichte (06:46):

So within a week, I think it was six days, I had something set up. I’m very lucky to have a long time tech head as a husband. So…

Jason Bavington (06:57):

That’s always helpful.

Heidi Lichte (06:57):

Yeah, and one of the great things that we ended up moving the yoga studio to this third bedroom and you can kind of get a view of my mats there. And he, from years ago, had Ethernet cable just rolled up in the closets. And even though we hadn’t used it forever, so we rolled one of those puppies out and it still works. And that gave…

Jason Bavington (07:24):

Wait wait wait. So “Ethernet” is like Wifi with wires, right?

Heidi Lichte (07:25):

With wires. Yes. Yeah. So if anyone remembers “dial-up” out there that required a plugin.

Jason Bavington (07:33):

That’s like when your phone was connected by a long blue wire.

Heidi Lichte (07:37):

Yes, exactly. So that allows me a much stronger continuous Internet connection to stream and have audio and video and all that going at once. So that was wonderful to have that already set up.

Heidi Lichte (07:51):

Otherwise we would have had like a hundred foot cord running from the office over to here. So that was helpful. So everything kind of shifted in five days. I think by the seventh day I taught my first online class and then I sent out a series. I kind of created my own manual. Because I’m not very high tech. I don’t have email funnels and all that set up. So I set up just a manual, which took hours to kind of put together like how am I saying this? What information do they need? But a manual funnel. And I sent it out to a list of people that I’ve gathered over 20 years that were not part of my studio group, because that that’s a separate business that I then teach those students through Desert Song. And so I just sent out this wide cast from classes that I have sometimes I hadn’t seen some of these folks for 10 years.

Heidi Lichte (08:45):

So pretty crazy. Yeah. People that had moved away, they lived in Portland, now. I have people coming in from California online now and Portland, students I hadn’t seen for a decade. And so I just sent out this email. If I heard back from them and they were interested, they got the next set of instructions and information. I did a, created a little Waiver and Health Considerations form. I added to that from my normal one, the importance of sort of their own sel- agency and taking care of themselves, staying under the radar of pain, all these things about physical precautions when we do online work together, because I’m not there to help see if they’re maybe doing something that could be harmful to them as much.

Jason Bavington (09:29):

Yeah, that’s the thing. You don’t get that, you know, real-world feedback. And if you see someone doing, in a position that might not be that cool, you can immediately rush off to them. Like, “Oh wait, hold on a second!”

Heidi Lichte (09:39):

Yeah, yeah. “Come out of that with me. Let’s try this.”

Jason Bavington (09:43):

So when they’re on the other side, when they’re on the other side of the computer screen, you don’t really get that opportunity, right? So I can see how important it would be to, “We have to all take care of ourselves first and foremost, because if you do something and get yourself into a pickle, I can’t help you.”

Heidi Lichte (09:58):

Right. Exactly. And what I have done is I set up a bigger laptop screen that I set up down on the floor, that’s just out of sight of the camera. And I put that on Gallery View. I can see, and I call it the Brady bunch view. You can see all the little pics of my people. And then I try to get them to set up. So if they’re willing to be on camera, that’s another issue, that their mat is wide that I can see their whole body that when I get up to adjust the tilt of my camera, so my head’s not cut off that they do the same. You end up with just some very interesting views of folks, you know, and I also tend to teach really functional yoga, more on the gentle edge. I’d say it’s not Flow or Vinyasa. It’s not Power Yoga. So I have a lot of verbal cues that go with that and everything is done asking them to check in and everything’s done in a way that’s meant to be pretty much a safer, more functional, more integrity-based movement. So I’d say that helps.

Jason Bavington (11:07):

For sure. And then, so how has response been to, so you sent out this wide cast of emails. You heard back from old friends from 10 years ago and some of them started to join you on your Zoom calls. How has response been? Has response been where you expected it to be? Is it far, you know, were you pleasantly surprised? How did it turn out? How many people do you have on a call? How are you feeling about all that?

Heidi Lichte (11:30):

Yeah, it’s been, great actually. And even some people that are right in town with me, but can’t make my physical classes are now coming to my Zoom classes. So that’s another thing that I hadn’t really considered that, Oh yeah. You know, people just can’t make the drive or now that they’re home, they can stop mid-day and do a lunch class. Or I have a couple of lunch classes, a couple of evening classes. And so the response has been great. And another thing that I had to figure out on my end, because I don’t have an administration staff to handle the exchange of who gets invites and who doesn’t. So I really thought that through, and people had many opinions about it. But I decided to provide my Yoga with Heidi classes through a donation basis. So that was meant to simplify everything that I know some of the studios are having to do, where they get someone signing up for a class, even if it’s through an online shopping cart. And then they have to make sure the money’s been received, then they have to pull the invitation for that particular teacher’s Zoom class and send it to that particular person.

Jason Bavington (12:41):

Yeah, it’s a lot more admin there.

Heidi Lichte (12:43):

That would exhaust me. Yeah. And I just, I would miss a lot of people because people may sign up that hour before, you know. So I just decided, you know what, if you want to be a part of it, it was real important to me to be of service to people that may be in a similar boat or worse financial boat than I found myself. So I wanted people to be able to receive some support through yoga, through meditation, through breathing, just to help them. And so the option is you can sign up for my classes and you don’t have to donate, you know. That’s why it’s donation based. So.

Jason Bavington (13:19):

And if people want to make a donation, do they do it through PayPal or is another? How does that, how does the payment flow work?

Heidi Lichte (13:25):

Yes. So in my, what I ended up doing, so I didn’t inundate these folks with four different emails a week. Because I know we’re all just already over so many emails. I do one every Sunday. I preset all the Zoom classes ahead of time and I just plug them in to one, two, three, four. So my people go back to the same email every week to click on the classes for the week. And there’s four different invites. And at the end of that, usually at the beginning of the week, I’ll have a little check in and what props would be helpful if they have them. And at the end of it, there’s a link to my PayPal account. And it just says, if you’re able to donate, it’s much appreciated. And it has a Zelle link, a Venmo link, a PayPal link. And then some of my folks prefer to send a cheque. So I have my address at the bottom as well. And that works perfectly for me. So I tried to give as many options as possible.

Jason Bavington (14:24):

Yeah. And that’s good. I think that’s really important because some people, you know, they’ve been using PayPal for over a decade and other people have never even heard of it and are concerned about sharing their credit card because they’re constantly thinking they might get, you know, some sort of fraud it’s just because they’re not …

Heidi Lichte (14:38):

Absolutely.

Jason Bavington (14:39):

So having these multiple payment options I think is really, really smart because it speaks to each person’s comfort level. You want to send me a cheque? Send me a cheque. Do you want us, you know, send me on PayPal? Send me on PayPal.

Heidi Lichte (14:51):

And it’s kind of like how I teach. I like to meet people where they’re at.

Jason Bavington (14:55):

That’s nice. Yeah. And then was it a big financial hurdle to set up your studio? Was there was a lot of cost involved there or were you able to put it all together creatively?

Heidi Lichte (15:06):

Yeah, that’s a great question. We had, again, some of the basic things of Internet and cables and all that was luckily preset. Lighting, we have, we’re on a little urban farm here in Phoenix. And so we raise chicks every now and then and I’m a chicken mama. And so we have these, they’re called brooder lamps. They look sort of like photography lamps. And then I looked on YouTube to find how to create little softeners. So I didn’t have to buy the, you know, the fancy light softeners. So I got creative. That saves some money. And I’ll just show you, I can tilt up and you can see one of them clipped to a fan up there.

Jason Bavington (15:52):

Oh, there you go.

Heidi Lichte (15:57):

So anyway, I ended up getting these things.

Jason Bavington (16:00):

Isn’t YouTube great? I have a question on how to, I have a question how to diffuse light, let’s ask YouTube.

Heidi Lichte (16:05):

Oh. Yes, exactly.

Jason Bavington (16:07):

Really smart. YouTube is just so amazing that, you know, it can creatively solve so many of our problems because, before YouTube, who would you go to ask about your light? You know, like the neighbor, the handy guy down the street?

Heidi Lichte (16:20):

Right. And when you engage with the internet, make sure you’re using it, it’s not using you as much as possible and “Google for your higher Good”.

Jason Bavington (16:31):

I like those, I need to write these down. We’re going to add these as like, you know, texts like little quotes that we have at the bottom of this blog post, I think.

Heidi Lichte (16:38):

Yeah. So the light diffusers were simply, Greg had some foam board and then I had white tissue paper and you basically cut out a frame with foam board and you tape the tissue paper to the back of it.

Jason Bavington (16:53):

So you have, so you have your Zoom call and you also have a YouTube channel.

Heidi Lichte (16:57):

I do. That’s recent too. Yeah.

Jason Bavington (17:00):

Well, let’s go. Let’s go check it out.

Heidi Lichte (17:02):

Okay.

Jason Bavington (17:03):

Alright. Well, I’m just going to pull it up here. Don’t judge my home screen here. There you go. I’ve actually been putting together a really cool playlist and this must be the results of all that. Great. So we got Yoga with Heidi. Here’s your channel here.

Heidi Lichte (17:22):

There’s me and Kismet.

Jason Bavington (17:23):

Aw. Hi Kismit! So we’ll go to this first one then. So is this a…so you’re building this channel obviously. Is this kind of like the typical format that you plan on having videos?

Heidi Lichte (17:33):

Yeah. So this, I just wanted to post a class and offer that. I have other ones that I’m in the midst of editing right now. This was a fairly gentle class. And just figuring out some of the logistics of which way do I turn? Which, you know, what’s the best angle for people to see me? And then I have them set up the same. So if they’re willing to be on camera with me and I can see them on another laptop, you can’t see on screen, but I have down on the ground. Then I put them all in gallery view and I can see my students as well.

Jason Bavington (18:10):

So they’re also lying down in the same, like, by the screen. So they’re kind of like a mirror of you, I guess, and they’re able to follow.

Heidi Lichte (18:16):

They can be. Some don’t have the room. So if it’s like couples that are coming, sometimes they’re facing vertically to me and some people’s heads. So I’m figuring out also how to ask people to set up, like when I’m, say, in a cat cow position sideways, and I have them step a lunge up, I’m used to mirroring them. That’s how I was taught to teach. So I would step my left foot up when their right foot would come up, right? That works most of the time. However, when you have people watching a screen, they can step their left foot up and maybe they end up turning away from you to come up. So what I’ll say, one thing I’ll say is the leg that’s farthest away from your computer right now, step that foot forward.

Jason Bavington (18:59):

Oh yeah. That’s a good way to handle that.

Heidi Lichte (19:02):

It’s interesting figuring out when mirroring is helpful and I’ll do some positions where my, and you might see it in this hamstring series, where I’ll turn my head toward the screen. My legs will be pointed away to show another move. And that I figured out it took me for whatever reason, the geometry and the confusion of direction. It took me a while to figure out when my head’s pointing toward the camera, I don’t need to mirror them because. But when I, when I’m on hands and knees and my heads pointing toward the camera, I do need to mirror them. So yeah, it’s been just kind of interesting. A little mind game for me to figure out even how they’re seeing me.

Jason Bavington (19:43):

Yeah. And this is an hour long. There’s a lot of really good content here. Anyone can go and just go to your channel and start following along, right?

Heidi Lichte (19:53):

Yeah, absolutely. And then I have smaller little vignette pieces just on, like, how to reset your breath. If you’re in a lot of anxiety right now, there’s just a key breath that I often start classes with. It’s very simple. And then I have one, I’m really into studying sort of primal or indigenous posture these days. And I’ve done that for a few years now. And one of the things is how to bend correctly. How to, and so whether that’s in yoga or just everyday life, I like the practices that I teach to be apropos to how you’re going to take that off the mat. So there’s another short video that shows how to bend over properly. And unfortunately in the West often we have totally lost that connection to our bodies.

Jason Bavington (20:43):

Well I know I can’t, I can’t even touch my toes. So, you know…

Heidi Lichte (20:46):

Well, that’s the thing though. Anyone who feels like they can’t join a yoga class because they don’t think they’re flexible enough. That’s to me, that’s the kind of people I’ve worked with my whole life. 12 years of intro to yoga, I taught. And I’m really interested in working with people who feel like that, you know, put your leg behind your head and Gumby workout is not for me. So I really do think that at least for me my goal as a teacher is to share the practice in a way that supports people where they’re at and gives them options to be successful.

Jason Bavington (21:23):

That’s very cool. So yeah, we’ll put a link to this channel at the end of the blog post so people can subscribe and follow along with you. I think that’d be really, really fun.

Heidi Lichte (21:32):

Great. Thank you.

Jason Bavington (21:33):

So you set this all up, you got creative with the lights and, you know, took a cue from the chickens, which is really cool. So now that you’ve been doing this and you set the while thing up in a week, which is amazing. So I celebrate you for accomplishing all that in such a short amount of time. Now that you’ve had a chance to kind of like take a breather, have a number of classes with your students, if you had to do it again, is there anything that you would do different for your setup? Or, you know, when you take on a class or any logistics is there anything you would, change if you were to do it again?

Heidi Lichte (22:04):

Yeah. I would say we first set up the studio in an area that seemed like it was going to work in the middle of the house. If you at all have the option of having a room where you can close the door, I highly suggest that. That seems like pretty basic, but it’s true. I mean, just, we have dogs, we have cats, we have chickens, we have Greg walking through the house, you know, a whole life going on, like people do and the door closed does help. So we moved it into this space. I was lucky to have the little screen separators already. So it just kind of, the size of the room. Like I have other stuff that you can’t see on this side of the camera that we just moved this way. And then we moved some of the things out, like we had a guest bed in here and some other items.

Heidi Lichte (22:52):

So really it had to do with, we had plenty of extension cords. That was a cost. Having a computer that’s up to date enough to stream and be able to work things. And that, you know, if you have that, that’s great. And then having, you know, a plane ohh you can see my kitty back there. Having a fairly space that’s not too distractive. So what I did learn about lighting though, I wish I could have a lighting expert come in and help me some. I just tried to reduce shadows and really get, make sure you’re the spotlight, that your background’s not brighter than you are. I didn’t at first know what the sunlight would do and you and I were discussing that earlier. And so I hung dark curtains. You can see in the back corner, there’s a window over there and I have a dark curtain and then a light curtain over that.

Heidi Lichte (23:42):

I just do sheets, actually, because we have curtains, but they’re not dark enough. So I use sheets and little clippies and, you know, I think just getting creative and using that for set ups, so you don’t have a lot of upfront costs. I will say one thing I didn’t mention before. One thing we did really invest in was a mic and while that’s not a have-to, and it is something else I’m having to mess with and jostle with once I’m teaching, which was new to me. But when you get farther away from the camera, you’re going to sound more and more, a bit echoey.

Jason Bavington (24:15):

That’s true.

Heidi Lichte (24:16):

Yeah. And then if you’re doing physical practices that have you put your head forward or turn away from the screen, it’s really nice for your folks to have your listeners to have that steady voice and the audio. And I read up on some of this and they said, you know, your video quality can be ‘meh’, and as long as your audio quality is great, people will hang in there with you most of the time. And if you can get both high quality, fantastic. But aim for audio first. So we did invest. It was like $225 I think for that mic.

Jason Bavington (24:52):

Yeah. Was that like an Amazon thing or?

Heidi Lichte (24:55):

Greg ordered it, so I believe I’m not sure he may have actually. What was it? The beginning of the lockdown he may have actually gone to a store we have here called Best Buy. Actually he went in person. I think he went in person for it.

Jason Bavington (25:11):

That sounds like a really important point, you know, because a lot of what you’re doing, number one, what you’re doing is highly visual. But number two, it’s really important because you’re literally instructing people on the movement of their body and the care of their body. So there’s some point, you know, the sound starts going ‘like this’, that would be good, right? It makes sense to, you know, if you’re going to invest in something, invest in your ability to communicate with your audience. Because you’re there for them and they’re there to experience something and to learn something from you that will benefit them and contribute to their care. So yeah. Make sure they can hear you.

Heidi Lichte (25:48):

Absolutely. And I’d say, you know, I really thought through, because again, it was a slow rollout. I didn’t have my, all my Yoga with Heidi classes. And then I had an amazing amount of admin work at the beginning to sign people up, to get their waivers, to then get the invite out to them. So that took a little bit, but now it’s a pretty streamline event and I’ll have just, you know, every once in a while some students they’ll come in and I’ll add them to my list. But connection. So I was able to think a lot of that through and where things, it took me while to get these Zoom invites just right. So I had a couple of faux pas there of, you know, maybe password was required and then it wasn’t…anyway. So I figured that out, but staying connected to your clientele, too. For me, my students making sure they feel cared for in this process.

Heidi Lichte (26:35):

The other thing, big suggestion, if you have clientele that isn’t used to being on technology, I did quite a few and still am available for those Zoom test meetings with people.

Jason Bavington (26:50):

That’s a great idea.

Heidi Lichte (26:50):

I helped them set up their technology and suddenly, and again, I’m part Luddite. So I’m not exactly high tech, but I became IT all of a sudden, you know. So here I am, the IT person is setting people up and we just walked through it together. We check the settings on Zoom. We check the settings on their computer and try to get their audio and their visual up. And so I think just carrying people. Like I had to really motivate myself to move into this current form of expressing ourselves and working and engaging with people. And I felt like it was really part of my job to hold the hands of my folks, to get them to onboard them, you know, and that was really helpful.

Heidi Lichte (27:38):

And it was helpful for me, again, just touching on the donation thing that I had a long-standing clientele. I think if you’re just cold calling people on this, you might end up with fewer people offering donations. So I had an entrepreneur friends say, you know, I’m concerned about you doing it through donations because you know what if you don’t get your worth? You’re this teacher of 20 years. You have this certain level of, hopefully you’re able to not have to file unemployment and you’re gonna keep your work up. And I said, you know what? I said, I would worry about that, perhaps if people didn’t know me, I said, but I love these folks. They love me. We take care of each other. I’m here to take care of them and I believe they’ll do the same for me. And they really have.

Jason Bavington (28:25):

That’s great. So yeah. So the community cares for you and you care for them and it’s just this nice, beautiful cycle that keeps, you know, what’s it called? “Virtuous Cycle”.

Heidi Lichte (28:35):

Mmmm. I like that.

Jason Bavington (28:37):

Ohh good.

Heidi Lichte (28:38):

Yeah. Virtuous Cycle.

Jason Bavington (28:40):

Yeah. So it’s like a virtuous cycle where, you know, all parts keep positively reinforcing all the other parts, which is great if you’re able to reach that level and achieve that, you know, with your community.

Heidi Lichte (28:52):

So it’s helpful to have that 20 years behind me. Yeah.

Jason Bavington (28:56):

Experience is good. Yeah. Two decades is pretty amazing.

Heidi Lichte (28:58):

And people. The people that have been a part of my practice, so yeah.

Jason Bavington (29:03):

So in summary, obviously everything had to close down in the physical world and you were able to pivot nicely by setting up a studio in the house. You worked on lighting and you worked on camera and all the technology. You helped your people get set up on Zoom if they needed the assistance. And you sent out emails to basically everyone you knew who present or former clients of yours and telling them what you were doing. You send them out a reminder email with four Zoom meeting links in it. So they have everything in one email ready to go, so you’re not inundating them, which is great. And you keep caring for your audience and caring for your people on your call, which is very important because you can’t actually be physically present with them. In terms of payment, you’re offering your time. Essentially you’re serving the community for now, which is very, very honourable. And if people want to pay by donation, you have multiple payment methods set up to accommodate the variety of ways that people wish to conduct transactions. So sounds like you’ve got it all well organized. That’s really, really amazing.

Heidi Lichte (30:08):

Well thanks! It’s been, yeah, it had my brain working overtime for a while. And I have to say, too, it helped me mentally, emotionally, not just financially, of getting back on a schedule. It was very strange to not have my normal rhythm in life. Teaching obviously is a part of my life. It’s my passion. And so I always feel better after I teach a class. So I sort of have this receiving thing going on as I’m sharing. And just seeing my people. I mean, being able to see, you know, at first people are shy about being on camera, but just seeing each other’s faces i some sanity. And I check in with them before class. I see how their lives are going. If they need anything. Requests. And then I make myself available after class, too. And sometimes one or one or two will hang out and then maybe the last one will hang out and we’ll actually be able to have a more personal conversation. Because that’s different too, right? There’s not the privacy factor.

Jason Bavington (31:06):

No. So yeah. Any ways that we can build community and keep those connections going through Covid is, you know, is always, always great. So yeah. So I’m Jason with DUX — Your Local City Guide. I had the pleasure today of chatting with Heidi of Yoga with Heidi. Thank you very much, Heidi. That was really, really funny. I’m going to work on, you know, trying to touch my toes. And what we’ll do is if you’re watching this video anywhere else but on our website, go to dux.city. That’s d u x . city. Click on the blog link. We’ll have this post there. Just look for “Yoga with Heidi”. And what we’ll do is we’ll put a link to the YouTube channel and any other goodies we can come up with to share with you and definitely check it out. And, yeah, we’re going to compare notes on how much you can touch your toes over the next couple of weeks. Thanks a lot, Heidi. That was a lot of fun.

Heidi Lichte (31:52):

Thank you, Jason. Great to be with you.

Jason Bavington (31:54):

You too. And take care everyone. Keep supporting your local goodness. Keep sharing your local goodness. And we will get through this. Cheers.

Heidi Lichte (32:02):

Cheers.