How to find new private yoga clients: proven strategies from an experienced teacher

This article is based on insights from yoga teacher and business mentor Francesca Cervero, shared during an OfferingTree webinar. Francesca has built a thriving full-time yoga career teaching primarily private clients over nearly 20 years.

For many yoga teachers, the dream of a sustainable teaching career feels just out of reach. You love teaching group classes, but the pay-per-class rate barely covers your rent. You’re passionate about helping students, but piecing together enough classes to make a living wage seems impossible.

What if there was a better way?

According to Francesca Cervero, who has maintained a full-time yoga teaching career for nearly two decades, the answer lies in private clients. But not in the way most teachers approach it – posting on social media and hoping someone bites. Instead, Francesca advocates for what she calls “organic, grassroots” methods that build genuine relationships and sustainable income.

Why private clients make sense for yoga teachers

Before diving into the how, it’s worth understanding the why. Teaching private clients offers several compelling advantages over group classes:

• Higher earning potential: Private sessions command significantly higher rates than group classes. While Francesca started teaching group classes in New York City for just $20–25 per class in 2005, her first private client paid $90 per session – nearly four times as much.
• No overhead costs: Unlike renting studio space or managing online platforms for digital content, private teaching can happen in clients’ homes, your home, or online with minimal equipment.

“There doesn’t have to be overhead,” Francesca explains. “When I was in New York, I traveled to see all of my clients in their homes and their offices.”

• More sustainable workload: Teaching 25 private sessions per week generates substantially more income than teaching the same number of group classes, with less physical and energetic output required.
• Better teaching experience: Private lessons make you a better teacher overall.

“It’s very student-focused as opposed to group classes, which are… a little bit more of a performance and it’s a little bit more about me,” Francesca notes.

With private clients, you learn to read bodies, watch breath patterns, and truly customize your teaching – skills that enhance all your teaching.

Understanding your season: career and life

Before rushing to find clients, Francesca emphasizes the importance of self-awareness about where you are in both your career and your life.

Career seasons

She identifies three phases of a yoga teaching career:

1. Hustle: You’re actively working to fill your schedule, being flexible with your time and rates to build momentum.
2. Maintenance: You have steady work but continue taking occasional new clients as others cycle out.
3. Pruning: Your schedule is full, and you’re being selective about who you work with and when.

Life seasons

Separately, you’re navigating seasons of life:

• Building: Fewer responsibilities, more time and energy to invest in career growth.
• Living: In the thick of it – raising children, caring for aging parents, managing major life projects.
• Enjoying: Responsibilities lighten, allowing more time and flexibility.

The key insight? These seasons don’t always align. You might be in the “enjoying” phase of life but the “hustle” phase of your career if you’re making a career change. Or you might be in the “living” phase of life while trying to build a teaching practice, which is completely doable, just slower.

“I want you to be realistic and kind to yourself about where you are and what your actual capacity is,” Francesca advises.

This self-knowledge prevents burnout and helps set realistic expectations.

The secret to client retention

Here’s what sets Francesca’s approach apart: she rarely needs to look for new clients because her students stay with her for years – sometimes decades. Her secret? Teaching in a way that’s completely student-centered.

“It’s very much about meeting students where they are. Figuring out what gets them interested, what gets them engaged, what they’re hoping for,” she explains.

Rather than coming to sessions with a predetermined plan, she takes detailed notes during each session (now digitally on her iPad, formerly by hand) and adapts to where each student is that particular day.

This approach means students feel truly seen and supported. They’re not just following along with someone else’s agenda – they’re exploring their own practice with expert guidance. And when students feel that level of care and attention, they don’t need to be convinced to continue.

Finding your first clients: two proven approaches

Francesca offers two distinct strategies depending on your situation. Both work without relying on social media.

Strategy 1: The Jumpstart

Best for teachers with multiple open slots.

If you’re new to teaching privates or rebuilding your practice with plenty of availability, this approach works remarkably well:

1. Make a list of people you know – students from group classes, friends who’ve mentioned interest in yoga, coworkers, family members. Anyone who knows and likes you.
2. Send a personal email explaining that you’re building your private client practice and have open slots in your schedule.
3. Offer a large package at a significant discount – at least 10–12 sessions at 50% off your standard rate.

Why does this work so well? First, the discount removes the financial barrier for people who are interested but hesitant. Second, committing to 10–12 sessions gives you enough time to truly help them and get them engaged in their practice – far more than one or two trial sessions would. Third, every time they practice with you, they’re embodying the value of the full-price service while paying the discounted rate, making the transition to regular pricing feel natural.

Francesca shares that one teacher who tried this approach had five or six people sign up for the discounted package; four continued at full price afterward, and she was still teaching most of them eight years later.

Important caveat: This is a one-time offer for getting started or rebuilding.

“I don’t want you offering private yoga lessons at 50% off again, unless you move and you have to start from scratch,” Francesca cautions.

Strategy 2: The Referral Bridge

Best for experienced teachers or those with limited availability.

If you’re more established, have a specific teaching niche, or only need to fill a few slots, focus on building referral relationships:The

1. Identify complimentary practitioners in your area – physical therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, massage therapists, doulas, midwives, pelvic floor specialists. Choose based on your specialty.
2. Reach out personally explaining your work and how it complements theirs.
3. Offer a free private session so they can experience your teaching firsthand and know what they’re recommending.

Francesca recently did exactly this with a physical therapist she met at her son’s preschool. After one free session with him, she already had one of his patients booked – a client who had graduated from PT but wasn’t ready for group classes.

The garden approach: planting seeds

Here’s where many teachers get discouraged: they reach out to three people and when nothing immediate happens, they give up. Francesca reframes this with a gardening metaphor. You’re not expecting every single seed to bloom immediately. You’re planting seeds, watering them, and seeing what grows.

“It’s not necessarily fast, but if you have kind of spacious expectations, I think it makes for the most sustainable, organic, real kind of growth,” she explains.

This means:

• Reach out to three people, wait and see
• Reach out to three more, wait and see
• Reach out to three more
• Six months later, someone from the first group gets in touch

This patient, consistent approach feels more authentic than aggressive marketing and builds genuine community connections.

Your website: your digital business card

While Francesca built her initial practice without a website or social media presence, she acknowledges that today you need at least a basic online presence. Think of your website as your business card – a place for interested people to learn more and potentially book with you.

OfferingTree’s platform makes this easy, providing everything you need to showcase your services, handle booking and scheduling, and process payments – all built specifically for wellness professionals. You can check out more tips for optimizing your yoga business in our blog.

But having a website doesn’t mean you should rely on it to generate clients.

“I don’t think social media is a good place to get private clients. I just don’t think that’s where people are looking,” Francesca says.

Instead, use your website as the place you send people after you’ve made a personal connection.

Pricing and growth

Many teachers struggle with pricing private sessions appropriately. Francesca’s current rates are $140 for 75-minute sessions (online or at her home studio) and $215 if she travels to clients – a premium she set deliberately high because of time and convenience factors.

As for how many clients you can realistically teach, that’s personal. Francesca taught up to 25 private sessions weekly at her peak, though she found that quite intense. Now she teaches 10–15 sessions per week, having carved out time for mentoring other teachers.

The key to scaling? Once your schedule fills up, raise your prices. You don’t have to increase rates for existing clients, but new clients can come in at a higher rate. This allows your income to grow even if your available hours don’t.

Why this approach works

What makes Francesca’s method so effective isn’t just the tactics – it’s the underlying philosophy. Rather than treating private clients as a side hustle, she approaches private teaching as valuable, meaningful work worthy of proper compensation.

She’s not trying to reach thousands of people through viral content. She’s building genuine relationships with dozens of people she can truly help. And by teaching in a way that’s deeply student-centered and effective, those relationships last for years.

“My favorite thing is that the teachings of yoga get to come through in the relationship,” Francesca reflects. “The relationship of teacher-student is the container, and then their relationship with themselves and their relationship with their yoga practice is the most important part.”

Getting started

If you’re ready to build your private client practice, start simple:

1. Assess where you are in your career season and life season.
2. Choose the approach that fits your situation (large discounted packages or practitioner outreach).
3. Make your list and start reaching out.
4. Set up a simple booking system so people can easily work with you.
5. Show up fully for each student, take notes, and teach in a way that keeps them coming back.

The most important step? Just begin. Send that first email. Reach out to that first practitioner. Plant that first seed. Your private practice won’t bloom overnight, but with consistent care and attention – and by following Francesca’s time-tested approach – it will grow into something sustainable, fulfilling, and financially viable.