Couple finds Yoga business to be no stretch

Pam Parker and Steve Liggett, who were around for the start of the running and aerobics booms, are making a big bet that Baby Boomers will turn next to yoga.

So far, the married couple has been right.

The first Bikram Yoga studio opened in Reno by their company, YogaManna, is profitable a year after its opening.

Next up are studios in Sparks and in Boston - Liggett's hometown as the company plans to open six studios during the next 18 months.

The south Reno location is a model for the company as it seeks to move yoga into the mainstream.

The studio is in a highly visible 3,100- square-foot location in the The Ribeiro Companies' Quail Corners development near Kietzke Lane and South McCarran Boulevard.

That's high-rent property compared to most yoga studios, but Parker said the visibility in a mainstream location is critically important to the company's business model.

Its Sparks location will have similar high visibility in the Baring Village shopping center.

The size of the location also allows Bikram Yoga to provide about 1,000 square feet of retail space devoted largely to clothing, although health supplements are on their way.

While the retail sales create a second stream of revenue for the company, the shops also allow potential customers to get comfortable with the studio before they take their first class.

"People are comfortable shopping," Parker said.

"You can work your way to the back room."

In the yoga practice room, the Bikram yoga taught by instructors is distinctive partly because it's conducted in a very warm room about 100 degrees and also because its 26 positions are accessible to beginners as well as advanced yoga students.

Instructors the south-Reno center has three are certified by a national organization after a nine-week training.

That level of training, however, adds to the fixed costs of the studio.

"We pay our teachers well because they're trained," said Parker.

With relatively high fixed costs real estate and staff YogaManna looks to build revenue through grassroots marketing efforts.

It created an alliance with a Jenny Craig Weight Loss Centre.

Employees make presentations at running clubs and other health-oriented groups.

It developed a buddy system in which customers can bring a friend for free.

"It's nice to have a yoga buddy, because most people are afraid to come at first," Parker said.

While the company's first studio has drawn a mainstream crowd teachers, firefighters, pregnant moms Parker acknowledged that yoga still has a way to go before it's accepted in the mainstream.

"We still get calls asking, 'Can you come if you're a Catholic?'" she said.

But Parker and her husband have seen how exercise programs can move from the fringe into the mainstream.

Liggett was one of the founders of the Reebok footwear business and has more than 20 years of experience with Reebok, Nike and Adidas.

Parker, meanwhile, is a certified public accountant and Stanford MBA

whose startups have included Ariat International, a marketer of high-end equestrian boots, (There is some irony, Parker acknowledges, that both her and her husband made their wealth in the footwear business only to turn to yoga, which is conducted barefoot.) More than 400 studios teaching Bikram yoga have opened across the nation, and YogaManna estimates the business is growing by 30 to 50 percent annually.

The growth, Parker said, comes as aging Baby Boomers no longer can take the wear and tear on their bodies from running and weightlifting.

Yoga programs benefit, too, because they combine exercise with meditation and wellness.

"Exercise programs were about looking good," Parker said.

"Yoga is about feeling good."