03 - Growing Income by Reaching New Audiences with Gabi Maddocks of The Playing Space

Join us for another awesome Guided Growth episode of the Step2Success podcast as we explore effective strategies for expanding your children's activity organisation.

In this episode, James sits down with Gabi Maddocks, founder of The Playing Space and a seasoned expert in the drama education field. With over two decades of experience, Gabi shares her journey from launching small classes to developing a robust educational brand. 

A discussion into the challenges and innovative solutions for growing your business, including integrating new technologies and maximising local community engagement.

Gain valuable insights into structuring your business to free up time and foster growth, making it an essential listen for any ambitious business owner in the children's activity sector.

Stay tuned for more insightful episodes from Steps2Success, where we help you navigate the challenges of running a children's activity organisation with practical advice and expert insights.

Created with pride by LoveAdmin

Edited with finesse by Making Digital Real

Transcript

James Brooker: 0:03

Hey everybody, this is James strategic business manager at love admin. And you're listening to the guided growth podcast, where we'll be taking you through the basics of growing your children's activity organisation with real insights and real actions you can apply to your organisation. Today, we're talking about how to find ways of growing your income with Gabi Maddocks at the planning space. Gabby has been running drama schools for over 20 years, and is a leading voice in the industry, helping to train new teachers as well as running her own school. She's now looking for ways to expand to organisation and reach new audiences. Gabby, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Great to have you on. Let's kick off by talking about the playing space, talk us through how it all started. And the journey you guys have been on. It

Gabi Maddocks: 0:43

started back in 2001, my husband and I had been abroad. And I had previously been an actor, but for whatever reason that just had lost its shine. And I started an MA to become a child psychotherapist. And as part of that work, I had to be working with children. And because I had loved my speech and drama classes so much as a child that seemed and I also had the actors training, that seemed to be the most obvious way of working with children. So I work for lots of other companies. But I also set up my own little weekly classes, I think I attended students, I approached a local primary school and a local state school. And I had done the lambda exam syllabus as a child. So I took a group of about 10 children through that. And as time went on, that group expanded from word of mouth. And I went from sort of 10 students in 2001, to about 50 students when the playing space launched in 2007. And at that point, I stopped working for all the other drama schools. And my husband also gave up his work to launch the playing space with me. And we grew from there. The next thing we added was teacher training and holiday workshops. And we published a couple of books as well for teachers. And that's where we are now.

James Brooker: 2:14

Cool, great. I think the journey you guys have been on is is one that will be quite familiar for a lot of people where it is you kind of just make it up as you go along based on how you feel about things. So I certainly think you guys have done really, really well getting to where you are. And it's also understandable that you know, you reach this sort of size, where you have your your core operation of things that you do, and you do really well to then be a bit stuck when it comes to what's next. Because you almost like maximise the organic growth, your class is a pretty full, your venue is pretty full. And it kind of leaves the the question of what's next. So tell us about the challenges you faced in those sort of areas in terms of trying to grow out your revenue?

Gabi Maddocks: 2:58

Yes, I would say that the main challenge is that we spend so much time managing the students that we have, that it then becomes difficult to build in time in your week to expand. We're a very local school, we're not a big franchise that have classes all over the country, we're very well known in our local area. So it feels at the moment that anyone who wants what we're offering in our local environment knows about the playing space. And we have though we you know, we're sort of at capacity there. But if we want to expand, then we have to go into schools, and we have to take advantage of new technology now. We're doing classes on Zoom for the first time. But it's the biggest challenges is one thing, we having all these ideas about things that we can do, and places we can go and but if you don't have the time in your week to actually implement that. You're just going to be treading water.

James Brooker: 4:08

Yeah. And I think it comes back to a topic that everything seems to come back to really and I know we've we've talked about it quite a bit in the catch ups that we've had. And I have a very similar conversation with a lot of people is that once you get to the sort of level of maturity and the size of organisation that you've got all roots lead back to structure. And have you got the right people doing the right things at the right times. Because that will free you up to focus on the activities that that you need to do. And I know that we've done work previously on sort of tidying up that from having an administrative point of view and how they work and then how they can free up that that time for you. But I think doing almost continual exercises around these what I've done this week, valuable, does it achieve what I want to achieve and kind of starting from that that goal and working backwards, I think is really, really important. And giving yourself a framework where you can do all of this stuff. And I only put in one thing at a time. And the

Gabi Maddocks: 5:13

other challenge, I should say, is it sort of battling my own personality, because the playing space has been my baby for so long. And also, because I do have, I do love sort of spreadsheets and accounts and numbers and all of these things that can so easily be delegated. But I, I have I found myself now that we have put in place thanks to your advice, a really good administrator who does, you know, hours each week to take off that workload from me, I find myself about to do her job. And then stopping myself and saying, Why, why are you doing this? Now, that's, that's Ellen's job, you can leave that to her. So that's another challenge is battling my own kind of control freakishness.

James Brooker: 6:04

And I think there'll be so many people out there that feel exactly the same way. But particularly when when you've built something yourself from the ground up, you want to do all of it, you're passionate about it, that's why you are where you are. But I think is having that discipline, that sort of mental filter almost to go. Can someone else do that is someone else going to be doing that? Am I just doing it because I feel like I ought to rather than actually needing to. So starting to introduce that that filter is something that is really, really good, and a really positive step, in terms of starting to free up your time, and the more structure you can add to your working week. The better, really, that, you know, there are so many quotes from the sort of stereotypical business geniuses of the world around how Uber structured they are. And perhaps, you know, going going to that extent is a bit over the top, perhaps in measuring things down to the minute, but having some some semblance of structure with with the way you work, I think definitely will, will enable you to focus on things and you know, having having that structure in place to go okay, well, on a Thursday afternoon, that's my time to think about what's next to always be three months ahead of the game. And you know, that that can come down to really simple things like planning out your camps. So I know we work this year, on getting your summer camps live as soon as possible. Because you never want to be the last person to release their summer camp. Because if, if you're the last person, then you've already missed 50% of people who've already booked stuff. Yeah. And now even if they wanted to do it, they can't because they've already paid to do something else. Yeah. So even with simple things, not the kind of big grand projects when it comes to growing out your business and growing your revenue is often by by being the first party. Yeah. So I think in terms of the first step, that's, that's a really important one. Because if you don't build from sort of a solid foundation within, within the organisation, and it's all kind of a bit all over the place, then you're never really going to achieve what you want to achieve, I

Unknown: 8:10

guess. Yeah, no, completely. And, you know, brilliant admin who's been working me for a long time, but has she's also getting used to me letting go of the reins a little bit on certain things. So she will say, Is this okay? Is this okay? Because she's so used to me wanting to double check everything. And now I'm having to say to her, do it however you want. That's this is this is something that I've delegated to you. And you may do it differently to the way I would have done it. But that's fine, I trust you. So it's a really, the dynamic between us just even over the last two or three weeks has really changed. And we're both kind of getting used to it. But when I look at the last two or three weeks and what I've actually managed to achieve creatively to expand my business, it's fantastic

James Brooker: 8:57

that that demonstrates how important that that first step is, and then you can start to focus on on on the subsequent steps. And I think that's sort of where where we're at, in terms of looking at the playing space, is now we're sort of at step two, which is okay, now we've got this spare time, what do we want to use it for? What, what precisely do we want to achieve? Because, as you say, often, people in your sort of position, creative minded people, you're going to have ideas just flowing constantly, in all different directions on on different things that you can do. But being able to prioritise them and pick a direction to go in. Is is also a difficult step to take. So I would say step two in that process, once you've sort of streamlined the noise is to decide on a goal short, medium and long term and pick one or two things that that you want to go and do. Yeah, so I know. With with the playing space, we've looked first at reigniting those Suppose teacher training courses within the lambda syllabus that's theirs come on really capitalising on that as a market opportunity, and going, Okay, let's do this one thing, and let's do really well. And having that quote close to this is what you want to do. And just this, I think is really important when actually delivering growth.

Unknown: 10:18

And there are so many people out there who who need those training courses as well, and not a lot of providers. So it makes total sense from, you know, from my point of view, as someone who has always been, I guess, a leading voice in that area, to come back to it now, post post COVID. And, you know, being able to actually run it in person training sessions for the first time in a while. Yeah, I'm excited about that.

James Brooker: 10:50

And that's, that's, that's exactly where you want to be, you want it to be exciting again, and I think so often, when you almost get to a point of nearly sort of stagnating because that sort of traditional organic growth, where just new people turn up each week starts to slow down, you get bogged down with answering the emails, you know that that's not the reason why you started the playing space. And the reason why anyone starts their activity organisation is because it's exciting, and because you've got a passion for it. So yeah, and I have these conversations all the time where people just want it to be exciting again. But when you get to a size and scale where there's sort of risk attached, because it's a significantly sized business, you've got to almost like pick and choose where you want that excitement to be. So I think for you, going back into teacher training is a really natural thing to do. Because you know, you've got the market there, you know, there's opportunity. And you know, you can produce a really high quality offering to go out to people, the next thing might not be so clear cut, but it will be one thing that you can devote all of your attention to, the worst thing you can do, I think, is to suddenly streamline everything that you're doing. And then use that by taking a shotgun to all of your ideas, and trying to do a little bit of all of them at the same time. Because you won't be able to get the clarity of thought to actually deliver on them. And

Gabi Maddocks: 12:10

actually, you know, it's interesting, it comes back to something you said earlier about planning your week. And, you know, advice from from from business managers, and I've never been that kind of business person. I've never had a business plan. I've always flown by the seat of my pants. And the thought of, you know, I have tried saying, Okay, this is when I'm going to do this, and this is when I'm going to do that, and it never really works. But you something you said earlier really appealed to me as he actually you get to the end of the week. And you look back, and you think about what your biggest achievements were in that week. And kind of almost do it from that retrospective point of view and say, Well, how can I replicate that? Where were the days that I feel like I wasted time or tread water? And how can I learn from that going forward? I love that idea. Yeah, it can

James Brooker: 13:00

be really useful just to give you a moment to breathe. I'm I'm a strong believer, and I do this with my own diary, I block out my Friday afternoons from from four until five. And that might be a different time, depending on sort of how your working week looks. But something that kind of signifies the end of a week, and sort of that crossover point going into a new week, I would have that time just to sit and go. What went well, what didn't go so well. What's the important stuff for next week? And what did I do that wasn't important that I need to make sure I don't do next week. And you know, breaking down goals and targets into those little jumps. So if next week I need to achieve this. And does that activity get me towards the bigger goal, should you always have a big goal, or a little girl and the little girl she'll be pointing in the same direction up to that big goal that you've got at the top of it all. And certainly as the leader of your of your organisation, everything's got to be focused towards that goal. And that doesn't mean that you have to be some sort of Jeff Bezos Business Mastermind focus only on profit margin. That could be I want to focus on this because that is going to grow our sense of community, which is a really important value. And that in turn is going to grow my income because people are going to feel more likely to join us because our values are stronger. That in turn means we can do more stuff and get get another venue in the long term so we can reach out to more people taking the view that my goal is what's most important to me, what do I want to achieve, regardless of what that is? It gives you something to work towards and sort of not having this kind of linear concept of what growth is, by more profit. I think will will will open you up to really delivering what you want to deliver from the business because that might not be more profit now. There are a lot of businesses out there that are quite happy with the level of profit they've got. They just want to grow the revenue, because then they can do more stuff. They just want to get more kids engaged. And actually that that might mean, if you've got loads of half empty classes, reducing your prices, which is a bit of a scary, scary thought. But you know, there's, there's, there's loads of instances where that that can work. Would you rather have 10 people in a top panel session or three people in the 15 panel session? Well, quite obviously, the former. But if I just said to you, I think you should reduce your prices by three pounds per session, you tell me I was an idiot. So it's giving yourself the time to really think about what it is you want to achieve. And then after that, how you can achieve it and be really open minded in that. So in terms of what's what's next, then where, where do you see the opportunities for the playing space? After we've achieved the this goal of really firing up the teacher training angle again?

Unknown: 15:59

Yes, so I think there's a few areas. See, when it comes to new opportunities, what I've realised is I've been quite passive, new opportunities come to me, I take them, they're a success. But I'm, I'm not active in reaching out. So for example, last year, for the first time, we had, someone approached us to run drama class drama workshops for visiting Italian students. So these are drama classes, particularly tailored for students with English as a second language, maybe a couple of hours a day, over the course of a week, they come over from Italy, they do other things during the day theatre trips, and museum trips and things like that. And it was, it was absolutely brilliant, huge success. The students loved it, the teacher loved it. She's booked us again this year to do not just drama workshops, but Creative Writing workshops. So that's a brilliant new revenue stream for us, and makes use of our studio at a time where the studio isn't getting much use. So, of course, the next step from that is, but that's not the only group of visiting foreign students, we could be doing research on that and finding out about other groups and actually offering that service to them. So that's one opportunity. We again, recently work, we go into a few schools, but again, they've all been schools that have approached us in some way they've heard about the playing space, they've had a recommendation from someone or it's come through a contact in my sort of world of being a lamda. Teacher, we, when we go into a school, we started a couple of years ago, just after everything opened up again, half a morning, so a half a day, it was one morning a week, we're now doing three full days there. And that has become quite a big chunk of our income. So an obvious thing to do would be to find ways of approaching schools getting past the gatekeeper. It's always difficult, but to find a successful way of doing that, and putting more brilliant, capable, talented teachers into more schools. And also, of course, the other thing, you know, Zoom has been a huge change in the last couple of years. I remember before the pandemic, before the pandemic, I was approached by a parent who wanted a private tutor for her child in a part of London where we didn't have any teachers living. And, you know, I put the word out, does anyone wants to travel there? And one teacher wrote to me and said, No, but I could do it on Skype. And I said, Absolutely not. There's no way we can teach drama on on Skype. That's ridiculous, a ridiculous idea. And then, of course, just six months later, that's all we were doing. And we very quickly did get all of our classes onto zoom, and found ways of delivering really good creative classes online. And so that is another opportunity because there are people all over the world that want to do Speech and Drama exams, and lambda now do remote online assessments. So that's another opportunity to reach new audiences. And the other thing about that, of course, because of the timezone you could teach during the day, when all of the other you know, when the when our teachers have more time available, because we tend to teach after school and at weekends.

James Brooker: 19:44

Yeah. And I think that the process that you've kind of sort of done by accident here in the space of the last two minutes, is is a great starting point where you've gone, here's all of this stuff that I can do, and this and this and this and actually they're all really good opportunities, and they're all opportunities based on things that have sort of fallen into your lap. That means, you know, there's a demand out there to do. And in some cases born out of necessity, you know, with COVID, and all of that type of thing with with the push towards more, more online based based sessions, I think the, what I would suggest is the next step from there, because the idea is phases, often the easier, the easier phase to do, what you come up with is this opportunity. And this opportunity is to write each of them down as all headers on have a bit of paper for each one. And then the opportunity is at the very top, then the first line under that is okay, so with this opportunity, what do I want to achieve? What would success look like for that opportunity, and that might be to build out 10,000 pounds worth of revenue in the first 12 months might be to get 100 children doing it, there might be two, to pick up two extra schools, for example. But the goal always comes next. Because if there's not a goal, then why are you doing it? What's the purpose, what's the reason for doing it? After that is the how. So we've decided what you're doing and why you're doing it. Now I need to work on how you're going to deliver it. And whether it's actually feasible and realistic to do that. After that, and you've laid out some really simple steps of okay, in order to get the schools on board, I need to understand what my teachers availability is. And also through the teacher training, understand what new teachers I've potentially got coming through some introductory training that I could look to actually employ as a teacher, once they've done the training with us to understand my capacity, what capacity do I have to actually go out and do this stuff and expand? Once I understand my capacity? Okay, now, who am I target markets? What's my target audience? What schools am I going to go out to? And why am I going after them? Because you want to be going after the low hanging fruit first, rather than just everybody? And then once you've got that, okay, how am I going to communicate to them? How, what approach am I going to tell you? Well, I'm going to use the example of the fact that I've done this for over 20 years, and that not only am I teaching children, I'm also teaching fellow instructors, because I'm a respected voice within the community. And I'm already working with X, Y, and Zed schools, which have shown success because they've grown by whatever amount over the past year, that then is, is your plan. And then at the end of that is the when, when am I going to do it? And when do I want to see that success by? And then if you have three different bits of paper, then all completed for those with those steps? of why, how, and when that's that's your plan for the next foreseeable future, three 612 months, depending on what those ideas are. And then I would take one at a time and deliver one top to bottom. I wouldn't do all of the wires, all the houses no other ones.

Gabi Maddocks: 22:59

Yeah. And actually, you know, it makes sense because you in terms of getting into new schools, that's a good thing to aim for September, because that's often when schools putting these things into place. So that's something to start looking at now, the running courses for visiting foreign students, that could be a next summer. So that could be something that I I sort of put on the back burner for now and focus on getting into more schools. So often, the timing of these things will dictate how much energy you put into it, and when, yeah, exactly.

James Brooker: 23:39

But I think by by listing everything out like that, you can then almost have a bit of a mental timeline of okay, I'm going to do this, then because that requires that and that opportunity is gonna be best served by as you said, for schools doing in September, when is the new school year and they want to get new activities in. And for others, it'll be at different times of the year, all of that will then wrap up to the six month or year goal that you've got overall. And if you added all those opportunities together alongside getting an extra 10% of people into your existing classes, you will achieve the overall goal that that you've got, but I certainly would encourage you never to lose sight of that overall goal and the opportunities should all kind of dovetail in to that that ultimate goal that you want to have because then then you're going to be consistent you know, there are so many different ways in which you can grow your revenue but you also in activity organisations don't want it to dilute from I think the core values and the things that make you guys you really because otherwise the quality won't be there. The suddenly your you might see your reputation starts to drop because you're doing things that people don't necessarily associate with you. So you therefore you don't do them particularly well because you're trying to do it differently, which is why you have that central piece and it all kind of draws out from there. Cool. So I think the other main piece that's that's involved in, in growing the revenue is getting everybody on the same page. So how have you found it in terms of people's mindsets and getting people into that idea of following the processes that we've just spoken about with the structure and sort of planning things out? The

Unknown: 25:21

other teachers, other teachers, administrators,

James Brooker: 25:24

anyone else that's involved with the blank space?

Unknown: 25:26

Yes. So I've already spoken about the sort of shifting dynamic between me and my main administrator. But the playing space also is now a partnership. So we have my husband is a partner. And we have three of our teachers who have been with us for the longest are also partners, although one is about to go on maternity leave. But I think that is something that I need to use the skills of those partners for. So for example, one of our partners is absolutely amazing at making videos, like promotional videos, or, you know, videos of the work of our students. And I've sort of spoken to her about it said, Oh, I'd love you to do a sort of, you know, holiday club promo video or something. And she's like, Yeah, absolutely, I do that. But finding the time to make that happen, she's up for it. I'm up for it. But I feel as though it's still waiting for me to have the energy and the drive and the organised organisation of it. So I think I need to maybe be better at saying giving other people the initiative, one of our other partners has got loads of experience working in school, setting up our classes within school situations, who's the best place to replicate that in other schools? So I think that is a work in progress, James, if I'm honest, because at the moment, it still feels it when you when you when you talk about ultimate goal, what's your ultimate goal? I think the ultimate goal is for not everything to be resting so heavily on my shoulders. And because I'm the managing partner, I'm the one that's making all the key decisions. And that's where I want everything really to point towards.

James Brooker: 27:21

Yeah, I think that that is a gradual process, I'd certainly don't think it's an overnight thing, because whilst you've taken the first step through the conversations that we've had, I think, in terms of changing your mindset, and we've spoken about different ways of thinking and different ways of working, everybody else is used to the old way of doing things, and it's sort of particularly where they've been with you for a long time, are used to that, sort of suck it and see approach I would say, of riding by the seat of your pants, and doing things based on on intuition broadly. Whereas now you you need to bring them along with you and sort of coach them in, in all of this, this stuff. And I would encourage that by buying them into the journey. So the way I always used to do it when I was a general manager in health clubs, was to decide the ultimate organisational goal collectively. So I had a management team working for me, and we would sit down in a room together, and I would go, Okay, what's your ideas on what we want to achieve what's gonna be most important to us collectively. And I think when you've got a partnership, you can follow quite quite a similar approach to it by you will obviously have your own preconceived ideas around the direction that you want for your creation. And so you can use that to guide them in terms of what the goal should be. But if you can, as a minimum, give them the impression that they've been involved in determining what that goal is, they're naturally going to be more bought into it success. So then when you lay out your action plan of how to achieve that goal is not just your goal, it's their goal as well. So then they'll come up with ideas on how they can do it. And then you can prompt even to drop in little prompters of, well wouldn't doing more schools be great. Oh, so and so yeah, you've done loads of work with schools and new trends to take that on, because that's gonna get us 50% of the way there to achieving that target. I'm gonna give you ownership of this product, this this project rather, and let's check it in. And when we can talk about how, how, how you want to do it. And these you're just gonna say is manage people how they want to be managed, because you'll you'll find it easier, apart from when people have characteristics and traits that are undesirable, shall you say. But let's let's make the assumption that that isn't massively widespread. So if if it's a sole person that It just needs a goal and a plan and they can be left to it and they'll get on with it. Give them a goal and a plan, check in with them in a month or two they can crack on, if they're the sort of person that needs a bit of help, just sort of getting things, you know, pushing that, that boulder to begin with. So until it starts going downhill, we then check in with them once a week for half an hour. How are we getting on? Where are your plans? At? What questions do you have? Here are my thoughts on how you could do this? What are your thoughts, to nurse them to the point where they feel confident enough to themselves, but with that end goal of them going away and doing it and then each of those partners should have their own business areas that they're responsible for their own projects, they're responsible for that then report back into you, then they then have their own individual targets. Without talking much further down the line once they're engaged in this whole process of that goal splitting out not just based on projects, but based on individuals. What do you want that partner to achieve this year? How are they contributing to the success of the blank space, in the same way that we've had the same conversation with you around? You know, you talked about the conversation we have with your your working week, what added value, what was important what wasn't important, and absolutely do do the same thing with them. And I think you'll you'll gradually see that sort of oil tanker turning round. And everyone should broadly fall in fall in line. What I would say after that point, if they still don't fall in line is occasionally difficult decisions have to be made. And if you're on a sort of voyage of change, we say, people don't, are just dead set on not going along with that they just don't want change, whatever it is, they don't want it. Will everything stay the same? Are those people write? Do they fit in with? Where your direction of travel is? Do they fit in with where you want the planes base to be? And if they don't? Are they right? Fortunately,

Unknown: 32:00

I think all the people that we have working for us are quite young and dynamic and would be energised and excited by the prospect of change rather than weary and trepidatious.

James Brooker: 32:15

Yeah, and that is a fantastic place to be because it gives you the licence to really put your foot on the accelerator because you're gonna have people that will really enjoy that that element of of challenge to go after what's next. So really, it's just a case of deciding on what next is. Cool. Well, that is all we've got time for. Thank you to Gabby for giving us some fantastic insights and really thrashing through what makes income growth work and how you can actually turn turn those ideas into sort of tangible, tangible things. So make sure you subscribe to our Steps to Success podcast to get more guided growth tips each month, and check out love admin.com/step to success for more information about how our one to one growth consultation service can help you grow. Thank you for listening