Building a Brilliant Stage School: Operations Manuals and Staff Support Explored - Ep. 85

Building a Brilliant Stage School: Operations Manuals and Staff Support Explored - Ep. 85.

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Welcome back to the Showbiz Side Hustle Podcast! In this special Q&A edition, we turn our spotlight on a single, crucial question from Lucy, a dedicated PerformerPreneur in the midst of launching her own performing arts school.

Today’s episode dives deep into the essentials of building robust operations and seamless staff handovers, core ingredients for any growing creative business. With Lucy’s questions as our guide, a panel of trusted industry associates weighs in, offering actionable advice on must-have systems, the best platforms for sharing procedures and training, and the importance of staff wellbeing. 

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale your school, join us for a mix of practical tools, real-world experience and a dash of showbiz inspiration to help you set up for success.

Chapters

00:00 Setting up school operations manual

05:43 Simplifying school operations with Google Drive

07:39 Setting up essential procedures

12:41 Building a values-based business

14:01 Building Foundations for Growth

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We are back with the second question and answer podcast. And I'm so excited that this week we're gonna focus on one question from one Performapreneur member, my client Lucy. You are listening to the Showbiz Side Hustle Podcast powered by Performapreneur. Now her and I have been working together one-to-one to build her new business. And I'm so excited to say that we are very close to opening that stage school that she has been planning for the past six months. However, I have never proclaimed to be the expert in every entity and every avenue and everything that comes up when building a business. I am, yes, your biggest cheerleader. Yes, I am experienced, but my best asset is the team and the support and the circle that I have access to around me. So drum roll, please, for the associates, the circle of trust that I bring to my clients, to my members, to you to answer those questions that I necessarily don't necessarily have all the answers to. So today's podcast is a question or two from Lucy. And I'll be opening up the answers to the associates to get their view. Here is Lucy and her two questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Hello, so this question is on operations and handover manuals. So you might have a few um associates that can answer this from different points of views. So I'm setting up a form in art school and I want to ensure that there's as much of my knowledge down on paper. So, you know, I want to include training guidelines and operational information. I want it all to be documented from the very start. My goal is for the staff to be well trained and you know to a high standard. I want it to be consistent across the school, and I just want you know everything to be super easy. So as a school does grow and staff are able to take on more responsibility, I want that to feel easy for myself to hand it over rather than feeling stressed as you know, I've got nothing in place and it's all information that's in my head. So my first question would be what are the best platforms or systems to use for sharing procedures, um, training materials and operational information with staff? And then my second question would be what would you consider to be the most or the five most important systems or procedures that a performing art school should have in place from the start? And again, this is just to focus on supporting staff training and consistency within the school. Thank you. Look forward to um hearing some answers.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

As you can hear, it's quite an intricate question. So no wonder I opened it up to receive multiple answers from the associates. The first person to reply was Jess, and here is her informed answer.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

This is really great and will really, really help you as you scale your school. I would highly recommend as you're writing your ops manual, as you're getting everything out of your head and as you're setting everything up, use a tool called Scribe. I adore it. It is so good for ops manuals. And then a good booking system, an online booking system. I adore Pebble, but that's because I'm a franchise and I get my franchise fiat source. There are many, many fantastic booking platforms out there. I also use a CRM system called ESC Hub. Again, there are many out there, um, including Go High Level. Um, there's one that a Dance Coach has released, which is exactly the same. Um, so have a look around and get yourself a decent CRM. That can store all of your training that you can then share with your teachers or with your whole community if you so wish. I hope that helps. And good luck with everything.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Jess is, as you can hear, an expert in this. She has built and scaled and now franchises her very own circus school. So she knows absolutely firsthand the systems and the processes needed to build that foundation so securely. Um, do do your due diligence, like she says. There's lots of platforms and lots of things and systems you can use. So make sure you choose the right one for you. Next up, I'm gonna throw it over to Hannah. Hannah has got a very different perspective on this starting point. Um, and it's really interesting to hear all different views so that you can make the right decision for you. Here's Hannah's reply.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Regarding your systems and like what you should even use in order to create your SOPs. I also secondscribe that is a fabulous platform to really document kind of any process that you need other people to be able to follow and to see. What's also really great about it is that it's visual as well as text, so it works really well for anything, um, you know, system management, uh, register creation, anything that's that people might want a visual aid alongside it. So I would also highly recommend Scribe. Um, obviously, as mentioned um by Jess as well, um, you know, an effective CRM would be able to house that. But in the interim, whilst you're building the school up, keep it simple. Your Google Drive, amazing, or Dropbox, it's shareable and it's secure. Pop any files, SOPs, anything in there, and it can be accessed at any point. I would also recommend putting together almost like an employee handbook type guide or like a almost like an instruction manual, really. Pop in everything in there and linking those SOPs directly in the document so that your staff can, you know, if they come across an issue whilst they're working, they can go straight to the handbook, find it, find the area that they need to look at, and follow a link directly to the SOP. That would be how I would do it. As the business grows, as the school grows, and you do look at incorporating a bigger CRM or something, absolutely move it all in there. That's where it's meant to go. But whilst the business is in its infancy and it's starting, keep it simple. Don't don't overcomplicate that element of things.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Thank you, Hannah from HVA. Keep it simple, is her word of advice at the beginning of your business building journey. Um, I'm gonna throw it over now to Victoria. Within the associate circle, Victoria is the person who we would reach out to when it comes to running and building your studio. So she's the perfect person to answer Lucy's questions. She is living and breathing that business as we speak. In fact, she has just celebrated 20 years as a dance school business owner. So here is Victoria's very well-versed understanding of this exact area in the industry. Listen in.

SPEAKER_04 7:55

Number two, um, onboarding those um students into their taste of classes and to full enrolments, really, really important. Number three, um, your safeguarding, like so so important. Everybody needs to be on the same page in terms of safeguarding, um, and um, alongside that as a number four, um, all of your health and safety, um, fire evacuation procedures, um, first aid, anything to do with that needs to be super consistent. Um, number five, um, anything to do with um tracking um progress and feedback for your customers. Um, again, you want that to be ultra um consistent amongst your team, um, just to provide clarity for your customers, that I think those are my top five for you, um, that you just want to get really nice and clear um for everybody in your team. Um, in terms of um what platforms I use, um I love Dance Biz, um, which is part of um ThinkSmart Software. Um, it's brilliant with all of your invoicing registers, timetabling, um yeah, uh financial reporting, that's really, really good. But there again, again, there are loads um of those types of products out there, so really good to do some um research. Um, but yeah, dance beers for me. Um, and then in terms of sharing um information, documents, um, etc., um, if you wanted to keep it really simple, good old Google Drive is great because you can share those folders and files with your team. Um, and I absolutely love Trello. We use Trello in our dance school, um, it's really nice and visual as well, which is quite nice sort of in the creative arts as well. Um, so again, really, really useful um for sharing across your team, sharing documents, and also you can um all see those the boards together, communicate. Um, so really really great again for following up. Um, so for example, on those inquiries, tracking where everybody is at within the onboarding process for a particular customer, um, again, talking about progress and feedback um for your customers again, brilliant way um to do that as well. Um, yes, it's a Trello. I love Trello. Um, yeah, so yeah, good luck, and I hope that helps.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

How exciting is this episode? These answers are given to you from experts in the industry, people who have lived and breathed building a business. Um, I'm gonna throw it out there next to Bookso. Bookso is in fact our spiritual guide, our spiritual healer within the circle. And so she has a very different perspective. If you recall within the questions, Lucy stated that she was building her business from scratch. She wanted all of the team to be on the same page and she wanted the delivery to be consistent across all areas of the faculty. Um, Bookso actually leans into that and has some advice for Lucy about building the brilliance of that faculty. So here's Bookso's answer.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

So for me, it's all about the spiritual, emotional, uh, physical, and mental well-being of the staff. So relating to the EAP policies that people have within their workplace from a corporate perspective, I think it would be nice for the industry to start having well-being counsellors or well-being consultants on hand for the staff to access at any time they wish, knowing that they are hated to from their personal well-being perspective, I feel it would create a culture of loyalty uh amongst the staff and a sense of being taken care of, thought of, considered by their employer. As I feel that this is very much a big part of a business being successful is very much the people that work in it. But having being somebody who's people-centric, I feel that the business will only be as strong as the staff that run it. So consider having somebody on hand that can be called upon for the staff to interact with, engage with, make it maybe once a month, knowing that they have that option available to them should they need to discuss anything in their personal life.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

I love that. Thank you, Bookso, and it's so, so important. It's a completely different angle to consider. And if you've listened, Lucy, and anyone else here today, and thought, mmm, that is interesting, that's intriguing, then do know that you have Bookso within your circle of trust through the Performapreneur Associates to lean in on and to ask more questions. It's something that we are very passionate about in Performapreneur, that's spiritual and mental and physical well-being, because that is what is going to build the best business, those foundations. Um, and then my answer to the questions. I'm working with Lucy one-to-one, and we are building this business with my support and my understanding. But I just want to point you all to episode 84 because that speaks about the values, building a business that's truly you. And I think if you haven't already, Lucy, and anyone else listening or watching the podcast today, please do go pop back to episode 84 of the Showbiz Side Hustle Podcast, where I talk and under and share with you the understanding of where the values sit in that foundation of building your business, how you can use them in your operations, in your systems, in your process, in your recruitment, in your delivery of your school. Um, those values will shine through. And if you get them really pinned down at this pivotal beginning moment, you are going to be able to build on them and incorporate them every step of the way. And that to me is what shines through when we're talking about longevity, when we're talking about sustainability, financial viability, and just keeping hold of that team, like Buxo has said, and then enrolling more and more students, like Victoria said, and building those processes systems ops managers so that you ops manual, sorry, so that you can grow and grow and grow, like Hannah and Jess have um nodded to. So please do listen to the episode. Come back with your own questions. Um, here's a little ad and instructions of how to um submit your questions for the associates. And if you need me directly, my DMs are always open. If you've been listening to this podcast and thinking, I wish I could ask a question about my situation, then this is your moment. For our up-and-coming QA episodes, I'm inviting you to submit your questions and get real personalized insight from me and my incredible Performapreneur associates. Whether you're stuck on social media, unsure how to grow your business, navigating a pivot, or trying to turn an idea into an income, we want to hear from you. All you need to do is head over to the Performapreneur website, hit the Associate page, and submit your question. And you could be featured in a future episode too. Your question? Answered. Your next step, clearer. Go on, send it in. We can't wait to hear from you. Thank you, Lucy, one of my fabulous one-to-one Performapreneur clients and a valued member of the community for submitting your question today. And I look forward to receiving many more questions that my associates and I can answer in the next few episodes. Big love, everybody. Good luck. Okay, guys, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Thank you for joining me here on the Showbiz Side Hustle Podcast. So until next time, please do take a little bit of action, that very first step, and make sure that you are doing something for you and your showbiz side hustle this week to move you forward and get you heading quickly and swiftly and strategically towards success.