Carole Royal interviewed by DanceStudioOwner.com

Carole Royal, Director of Royal Dance Works, has over 33 years of teaching experience in both the public school systems and private sector. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education (Performing Arts), as well as danced and ice-skated professionally touring Canada and the US, and then opened Royal Dance Works in 1979. Carole has been responsible for training national championship dancers, Star Search winners, and professional performers who've appeared in the U.S., Japan, France, Australia, and Caribbean. In addition, as director of Dance International, a foreign dance exchange program, she's taken dancers to study in Australia, London, Paris, and Italy.

Carole Royal has been a frequently featured speaker at the Dance Teacher Summit. The following is the transcript of Carole being interviewed by dancestudioowner.com

DSO: Where are you located, how many years have you been in business?

Carole: We have a studio called Royal Dance Works in Phoenix, Arizona. This is our 30th year. Actually, just this last week we had our 30 year celebration because 30 years ago October 8th we started. We had an Alumni Night and we are having special events this week, so it is pretty exciting. We are in a city. We just expanded the facility which is now 9,000 square feet. We have five dance rooms and we've been in business for 30 years.

DSO: What is a typical day like for you?

Carole: It has changed over the years. I have an office at home, so I do a lot of graphic arts and that kind of thing at home during the day. I do the bookkeeping, payroll, advertisements, newspaper articles, and all of that type of thing at home. I then go into the studio. I used to spend all of my time at night at the studio teaching. Now I am doing more managing and overseeing. I peek in on classes; I meet with parents; I meet with booster club and all that type of thing. When I walk in I'm like a pin-ball machine. It gets hectic.

DSO: What obstacles have you had to overcome during your time as a dance studio owner?

Carole: The biggest obstacle is financial. I would guess this is probably true for most studio owners. You are doing something that you love and other people tend to think of it as a hobby. They tend to think that because you are working with children, it should be free.

Cub Scouts, Brownies, Little League, and so on are staffed by volunteers who work with children without pay. It is hard to say, "Okay, no, this is a business and we are earning a living while doing this." The public persona is not geared that way.

DSO: Is there once piece of advice that has made the biggest impact on you as a studio owner and business owner?

Carole: Number one, you cannot lose your love for doing this, so you need to keep yourself motivated by attending events like the Dance Teachers' Summit. You need to do things that will get you going again because there are hardships with this business.

I find that the good has to outweigh the bad. It is not all going to be good, but the good has to outweigh the negative and it has to be exciting. Producing dancers who excel and watching them perform or watching them be successful is something you can glory in.

I have some advice for somebody who is new to this business. Get as much background as you can other than dance. Many people go into it as I did, as a dancer. I didn't know anything about running a business and I learned by accident. I stumbled through things and it would have been helpful to me to have taken some business classes.

I have a library of 500 books on self-growth business, successful customer relations, how to reward employees, and those kinds of things. I've listened to tapes and CDs and I've read books because having a good dance background did not prepare me for running a business.

DSO: You echo our platform here at Dance Studio Owner. One of our goals is to help and prevent studio owners from burning out or, as our tagline says, "Keep your passion for dance alive as you grow your business." This is the challenge of being a studio owner. You love the art, but the business can burn you out. Share with us how you maintain your artistic standard for yourself and your faculty. You mentioned attending events. What are some other things you do?

Carole: We try to do as many performances as possible and have the choreography developed to keep things exciting.

This week, for example, for our 30 year celebration we had an Alumni Week which was very exciting. It doesn't particularly deal with artistry per se, but it gets you away from the hum-drum business thing.

We are having a big hip hop party in the parking lot this coming Saturday night. We're having a sleep over for New Year's Eve. These are activities that keep the studio pumping and alive. I think doing things like this gets you away from the every day monotony of running a business.

For me, keeping good dancing alive is really important. I observe all of the teachers which is absolutely wonderful. I get teary-eyed when I see some of the stuff they are doing. This keeps me going.

DSO: That's wonderful. You mentioned doing self-study through the business aspect. Is there one book that has made the biggest impact on you?

Carole: There absolutely is. There is a book that a friend recommended about 20 years ago, an old book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It is a great book. Surround yourself with positive people, number one.

DSO: What do you like most about owning and running your dance studio?

Carole: My favorite part is watching my dancers excel. By "excel" I don't mean winning a competition, but performing well. I enjoyed watching my daughter grow with it. I would just say that I love dance and watching my dancers is thrilling for me.

DSO: This leads to my next question. What do you like the least about owning and running your dance studio?

Carole: I think it is the same as for most people. It is dealing with the negative that comes with any business. Trying to make everybody happy is a tough road. You make one person happy and, all of a sudden, you've made two people unhappy. It is trying to deal with parents in the best possible way.

I place myself in a position of not being totally available at every moment. This way I do not become engulfed in it. Meetings can be set up to handle issues and so on. This is a tough part of it.

DSO: You echo what so many studio owners say. It can be complicated dealing with parents. As you said, you have to create systems or structures so you don't have the life sucked out of you in terms of dealing with the problems.

Carole: Having the "life sucked out of you" is a good way to put it.

DSO: No matter how beautiful your end performances are, there is always somebody who is not happy. Those are the opportunities to grow, as you said.

Carole: I say this over and over again. It just depends on how much they believe you. Basically, I tell parents they have to trust me and the teachers and if they don't, they need to be someplace else. Also, they can't get caught up in what place their daughter is assigned in the particular dance or group. If they have a long history of dance--which they probably do--at different times they will be at different places in the dance.

At one point they will be unhappy because they are the top person in the group and they are humiliated to be dancing with these lowly people in their group who aren't good enough. You're the top person, so you are complaining about that.

Then you move up and now you are the low person in a group. You don't get to be front and center; you're always on the side. Well, you're the low person in the group. I tell parents they could complain throughout their child's entire dance existence no matter what or they can choose not to complain. There are highs and lows.

DSO: That is great advice. Carole, you were ranked the number one studio in Arizona which is a wonderful thing for both competition and performance. How do you fit all of that in? How do you decide which ones you go to while avoiding burn out in your dancers?

Carole: I give dancers choices. I base a lot on my senior company, so the other ones have to go with the flow. I meet with senior company at the beginning of the year to find out what conventions they like and the teachers they like. It is partly based on figuring out time of year. We space things out.

Also, does it conflict with anything we are doing? We do a big annual show at a downtown theater with our performance company. We perform for the Phoenix Suns as a half-time show. We set up our performances and try to get our competitions around that. We try to balance competing and conventions.

I come from an educational background from being a high school teacher, so I tend to favor conventions. I want the kids to keep growing, so we tend to do more conventions with competing than straight competition.

DSO: That is a great point. Like you said, it helps keep them well rounded and growing.

Carole: This is another point I stress throughout everything. If we are preparing anybody for anything in life, having them be well rounded is a great facet. We take pride in that.

We have kids doing contemporary, of course. We also have kids doing hip hop and tap, musical theater, and ballet, so we are not stressing one thing. We like to have the kids be ready to fit into any area.

DSO: I have another question for you. We deal with this and I think so does every studio owner whether small, large, urban, or rural. I am referring to the task of finding new teachers. How do you generally find new or substitute teachers for your studio?

Carole: We haven't had too much of a problem with that. I would say 90% of my teachers have come through the studio, have received their degrees in dance or education, and are now teaching at the studio.

We rarely look outside, but resumes come in and I interview them. This was the case with our ballet teacher who was a soloist with Bolshoi. She wasn't from my studio, but I heard about her. We have not gone to outside sources like advertising; I've never done that type of thing. There is nothing wrong with it, but we have never had to do it.

DSO: That is how we tend to hire almost all of our faculty and staff. They have come from within or through our teacher training program.

Carole: Sometimes it is a case of someone knowing someone. We have someone with Ballet Arizona teaching for us because our regular ballet teacher knew them, so it happens that way sometimes.

DSO: What advice do you have for someone listening to our call or reading the article? What advice do you have for dance studio owners today?

Carole: Keep your life balanced. Have some fun along the way and don't allow your life to become all dance studio related and nothing else. It is fun to take some trips and do some things to keep balanced.

However, the other side of the coin is that you can never relax in the dance studio business. I don't think you can ever say, "I've made it." You have to always keep a step ahead. You have to keep doing something to grow.

DSO: That is great advice, Carole. What is the greatest challenge you face today? What do you think is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the dance business or you personally?

Carole: I think the challenge right now is the economic times. If it were not for that, I would be deliriously happy with the studio. It has to be the effort to keep things going during these tough times. Dance is something that many people consider as an extra, so it is something that can be cut out. This is probably the toughest thing facing most dance studios.

I just talked to a former student of mine who owns a small dance studio and they just went out of business. They couldn't keep up with the economy.

DSO: It has been very turbulent unlike anything we have seen even in difficult times before. We expanded our studio last summer right against this economic downturn.

Carole: This was the worst possible time I could have expanded. Things became available and it seemed like the thing to do then, all of a sudden, the floor fell out of everything.

DSO: You have to trust that when the economy turns around you will be ready for growth.

Carole: Exactly because I love my new studio. Every time I walk in it is spectacular. We realize we have to get past all of this and we can make it.

DSO: It was an honor to meet you in New York and I hope our paths cross again. Thank you so much for being on this call today for DanceStudioOwner.com. You are helping us fulfill our mission which is to help dance studio owners keep their passion alive as they grow their business. Thank you.

Carole: Thank you!

Click here to read more about the Royal Dance Works studio