Megan Kerrigan (00:01)
Hi and welcome to another solo episode of Meg Talks. Welcome back. I'm super excited for this one because I'm back down memory lane, going back and talking about the journey of like move with Meg where we started, how we got to now. It's funny the way I just said that is like how I do my assessments for any of our one -to -one clients or our one -to -one dancers. And I was like, right, tell me about your dance journey when you started.
how you got to where you are now, how things are at the moment, what your goals are, what you've learned. That's basically what I'm gonna do right now with you guys about move with Meg. So many of you have been with us since the start and many, many of you may be just joining our world right now. And I think it's just nice to revisit where we've come from, what we've learned through the process, the reasons for starting in the first place.
because I think it gives you guys a much better understanding of us as a team, me as a person, Move With Meg as a brand, and a little bit of an insight into what's coming in the future too. Move With Meg started before, so there's like a little pre -start to Move With Meg. I was at university studying criminology because I wanted to be a police officer. And during that time, I also wanted a job at home.
I went to uni after being on tour for seven years. So was a bit older than everybody else in year. So everyone was like 18. I was like 24, I think in our first year, which was pretty crazy. So I stayed at home for uni for that reason. So I lived at home with my mum and dad. I wanted to have a job because uni was, if anyone's been to uni or going there,
As a young person is great because you have so much free time. So like there's lots of self development. Obviously I'd kind of done that period. So I just simply went to uni for my lessons, did all my work in the library and then would go home and have like three days where I wasn't doing anything. So in my first summer of like my first summer holidays from uni, it was a three year course, I decided to.
become a personal trainer. So I did my intensive course and during this, was thinking this is just going to be an in -between thing. So while I'm at uni, I can earn some money and then I'll go into the police or some sort of job working with youth offenders was what I wanted. So I did my personal training and started working in a private gym, very near to home. So loved that I used to...
work. think some of my first clients were like half five in the morning. my gosh, how I hated that. But anyway, you get it done, don't you? I wasn't a morning person at all. I used to really, really struggle to get out of bed and be there for that time, but I made it happen. So I did that and it worked pretty much, not necessarily full time, but I had a full time client base at this gym around uni. Now,
What I did want during that time and what I advertised for was Irish dancers within the local area that wanted to be trained by me with my experience, obviously from being in the show and also as an ex -world champion. I say ex, still a world champion, but you know what I mean. So as a world champion in the past. So I advertised for that and I had two dancers or maybe three or four actually take me up, but the two...
that were like the first was Courtney and Mia, which if you follow us, you will know Mia. I still train Mia to this day. That's like five years. I think it's like over five years now that I've been training her, which is pretty crazy. I've watched her grow from a 10 year old to she is now 17 doing her driving lessons. Like when I think about that is crazy. Like she was literally a baby when she came to me.
So we've got like this sister -like bond now where I've seen her in person pretty much every week since that, since she was 10 years old, crazy. And then Courtney, another dancer from local that was an older dancer and she was looking to just give herself that last little push for like, let's say her last worlds or her last little hurrah. Like I'm really gonna go for it. So she gave it her all. And me and Courtney are now best.
friends. It's actually crazy. She doesn't dance anymore, but we have developed such a good friendship from that moment of like coming to me as a PT, but I just took her to Manchester this weekend to celebrate her 30th birthday. And she, class her as one of my best friends that I have. So crazy, isn't it? How that's basically the start of move with Meg was those two clients come into a local gym that I was working at. That was the start of this. And it was at that time that I thought, right,
maybe I could get a couple more dancers to one place for like over the summer break and do like a summer workshop -y kind of thing. So I found a studio in Birmingham City Centre and I hosted like a summer workshop. And at the time it was class. did six summer, six of the workshops across the summer and like you could pay as you go and book onto them or you could like book the whole six. So the first one I did, had two dancers at Erin McPollard and...
my God, why can't I remember your name? I'm looking at her face. she doesn't dance anymore, but anyway. So two dancers and I was like, no, like I've completely over budgeted here because I'd spent, so I'd spent more booking the studio than I made in those two dances on that first one, but I knew that it could work. So I continued on and by the end we had like over 30 dancers in each of those workshops and we had.
a class time. Now, at that point, like my idea of what I, the role I wanted to fulfill for dancers was completely different to what I do now. And we'll sort of touch upon that as we go through the journey. So that was that. I kind of did a Christmas one as well, didn't go as well, but that was like the extent of how much I was working with dancers at that time.
I didn't see, I really wanted to work with dancers more. I didn't want to work with the general public. I wanted to work with dancers, but I just didn't see a way of it working because obviously I could only see the dancers that were local to me and I couldn't envision dancers working online. I just didn't see that it would work, especially with like dancers being younger. I just didn't see there was a space for it. And that's where, ba dum ba bum, lockdown comes in.
So lockdown was announced. It was one week before the world championships and I just, was at home with my parents and I said to my mom, imagine being those dancers. Like I kept just, I didn't really know loads of them. Like I was working with Mia at the time. I was working with a couple of other dancers at this time, but like I didn't really, I don't know why I was so invested. I was like, I could not, I could nearly cry now thinking about how I would have felt.
if it was a week before the world championships and it'd been taken away from me. I think it's like all that work that you put in all year round, all of the effort, that's like the main goal for the year for that to be taken away from you a week before is really deflated. And I kept, I just kept replaying how I would feel in my head. And that was when I thought, right, I'll do something. So at that point I did have a Facebook page for Move With Meg and I hosted a, just like a free fitness class. So I did.
I think I started with one every couple of days and then it grew and we ended up having a timetable of these Facebook classes that were for free that I was just doing because I felt sorry for the dancers almost or I could feel that I felt emotional for them. And then teachers ended up sending their dancers to our classes because...
Obviously they at that point weren't having Zoom dance classes. We were all navigating this new crazy world. If there was something positive their dancers could be doing that kept them in the loop, then of course they're going to send them. So over time, like this grew to like a daily routine. Like we had a daily, some days we were doing stretch, some days we were doing cardio, some days we were doing strength workouts. So it was something different every single day. So Monday to Friday for three months of that lockdown, I delivered a free class.
on Facebook. And then it was actually from this that like Move With Meg was properly born because then teachers and parents like randomly would ask me, would you do a workshop for my school on this topic? I just said yes to everything. Not even with the idea of like, if I say yes to everything, I'll grow a business. Like this is why I always say I accidentally started a business because it was an accident.
In terms of I didn't do all of these things as a marketing employee, like it just happened because I did all of these things. And that's where like, I think a lot of people began to trust the business and like the brand straight away because it was set up under that premise of like, I'm literally just doing this.
because I want to make the dancers feel better. I want to keep them excited about dance. And I think that underlying honesty and truth within our passion as a brand, that's been like such a good foundation for us to be able to develop, grow and be trusted by parents, teachers and Irish dancing as a whole. It wasn't then long into lockdown that Annabelle actually became part of the team. Now, I wasn't even really earning money at this point.
But what I was doing was I was calculating. So I used to set challenges and I was calculating like dancers results during the lives. I'd get everybody to comment. And then I was spending like, by the time we were finishing, there was like hundreds of dancers where I had this crazy spreadsheet and in this spreadsheet I'd input their scores. So then we'd go and revisit and do the same workout again a couple of weeks later to see if they've improved. But like, obviously, so.
It went from me doing like this half an hour workout or this hour workout to then having to like calculate, tabulate, do all of this other work on top of that workout that meant that like that was taking me four hours. So the class was taking me an hour and it was taking me four hours to do all of this like adding up, adding the data in. And I don't know, I can't even remember how it came about, but Annabel, I saw that she was a VA. She was doing one of my programs.
It's like I just brought out this new program, like a dance assessment program. And she was on it. I saw some sort of communication. I saw that she was a VA and I didn't even know what a VA was at this time. And I was like, so then I started talking to her and I asked her like, could she tabulate that stuff for me? Because what was happening was I wasn't able to say yes to the things that people were gonna pay me for because I was too busy spending time doing the tabulation.
So it meant that if I could get Annabel to do the tabulation, I would then be able to spend more time doing like the paid work. So over time, Annabel started just doing that. And then now it's like pretty much like, well, she is a hundred percent like my biggest team member. She's my executive assistant now. So she pretty much, have another VA that does like the...
the uploading of classes and things like that, the things that like, you don't really need to know about dancing to be able to do. And then Annabel helps me so much with all of the running of the business day to day. And that like all came from that just like one little thing. So she also went from like customer in a way, client, to being a huge part of this business. It's actually crazy. So we developed, I'm built up,
huge one -to -one basis. I was doing let's say 30, 40 one -to -ones a week. It was crazy. I was before school and after school, especially when school was back. In lockdown, obviously, we were sort of like running all the way through the days. I was, I went from at the start of lockdown to like having all this time by the end of lockdown, the gym reopened. I had to not go, I couldn't go back to work. I couldn't go back to my original job that I let close down in lockdown because
move with Meg had exploded. So at that point, like I didn't really have a strategy. didn't have an idea. I knew what dancers wanted from me and I just sort of rolled with that. So over that time then, one -to -ones became our biggest like earner, but also like the thing that people came to us for. And that is when I brought in Avine as a second coach. So we needed another coach because my diary was full.
and we had a huge wait list, people weren't leaving, they were like staying consistently and didn't seem like they were going to leave at all. So there was never gonna be space for me to be able to take on anybody from the wait list, which is when I thought, right, I need another coach. Aving kind of fell onto my lap. She was finishing her PT course at the time, had left Lord of the Dance. I knew her from Lord of the Dance. So she kind of fell into my lap. We had the conversation, I said, I don't feel.
pressured, but if you were interested, like I've got hours for you basically. So I trained her up as a move with my coach and she started taking one -to -one clients as well and we grew. So what happened at that point is like they saw us alternate alternating. Cause I didn't want to not see any dancers. My baby was this business and I wanted to be involved in every single dancer.
So that grew and grew and grew to a point of we had another coach Kyra and we were delivering 90, over 97 one -to -one sessions a week. Like, sorry, what? Over 97 one -to -ones we were delivering. And yes, that is amazing. We're touching and improving 97 dancers, but there was something that just wasn't sitting right for me.
And I knew that I could impact way more dancers than that. But because I was so busy in the day -to -day running and the one -to -ones, I didn't have space to sit back and oversee the business and think, okay, what is our aim? And is this fulfilling our aim as a business? And when I finally got to do that on a business retreat last year, was at the point where I realized,
Okay, I don't want one to ones to be the main product of our business because I know number one, they're the most expensive. So the touch point is yes, the highest, can't, some people can't access this. And I don't want that. want all dancers to be able to access what I'm offering. Or at least at some point be able to access like the different tiers. So during this,
conversations I was having on this retreat, really, really just like reevaluated what the purpose, what my values were, what the reason for the business was. And I really wanted community to be the biggest element. And I think if you listen to my previous podcast about me going to therapy and what I learned about myself during that time and it linking back to dancing, go and listen to that if you haven't listened to it already, because that will help to explain this pivot and why that.
community is the most important thing to me really within what I'm creating here at Move With Meg. And so I decided to pivot. I decided to pivot because one -to -ones don't give community. Yes, you feel a part of the Move With Meg team and you're a part of our client base, but you don't know any of the other one -to -one dancers. You don't support them. Like there wasn't that team element. There wasn't that like, we're all Move With.
Meg Dancer's element, and that's what I wanted to create. So we sort of pivoted, I changed the structure of the business to really, really spend more time focusing on the Gold Club. Now the Gold Club was always there. The Gold Club has been running since February, 2021, but I just never saw it as my main product. And I think because I never put all of my energy into it, it didn't thrive like...
the one -to -ones and I didn't have the space to be able to put all of my energy into it because I was doing all of these one -to -ones. So when I start to oversaw and thought, right, community is the main thing I want, the goal club is how I can do that. When we started to develop the goal club then, instead of turn like moving one grain of sand at a time with our one -to -ones.
We were literally, we're able to move like a shovel of sand. When we think about the sand being a damsel, if we, what are you gonna choose to impact one person or to impact 500 people? If you can impact and improve 500 people with the same amount of effort that you were putting into that one, then why would that not be? To me, that's just like a complete no brainer. Now that's not to say that we don't have one to ones anymore because we do this space for those too.
But my main focus shifted to be that goal club. we have, in this last year, it was my mission to make it like the place to be for dancers. And it still is. It's getting better and better all the time. But we always had like our live classes running in there since February, the 2021, crazy. But...
We pretty much now have like unlimited value in there. can't even, it's 35 pound a month. The value that you get in this membership is pretty crazy. since choosing this as a new focus and as our main focus, we've added a challenge every other month. So every eight weeks you've got a challenge. So this month is the crossover challenge. It is, is it this month or is it?
I can't remember if it's this month, but no, it's next month. So it's October is our crossover challenge. We most recently had, we had the splits challenge. We've had a kick height challenge. have a turnout challenge for the toe height challenge. So really, really nitpicking and going deep into all of the techniques of Irish dance and having a five day challenge. So you can learn about yourself as an answer and then put into place the actions you need to do to make yourself better. So we have.
Challenging every eight weeks, we've got master classes with a guest expert every eight weeks on different topics that associate with that time of year. So Annabelle just did one last week about majors mindset because we've got the All -Scotlands coming up. We've got like the Open Platform World Championships coming up. We've got so many big majors coming up across all of the organisations, perfect time for that. Then we've got our goal setting every month.
We have mindset classes, we've just put in some US time zone classes. We hosted our first summer camp in there this year. So like the Gold Club is growing and getting better and better all the time. We have now launched our app, which unfortunately at the moment still isn't working on Android, which don't even talk to me about it because that is frustrating, but we're getting there. So the app which hosts the Gold Club and makes it easier for dancers and parents to trust their dancers.
with this app rather than using social media to contact us, for example. And the main part of that gold club that I have grown and we love, I spend most of my time going in here and commenting on whatever anybody's put in is the community space. So it's our members club area within that and that was the biggest thing I wanted to grow because that is where dancers feel heard.
dancers feel appreciated, dancers feel accepted, dancers feel safe, dancers feel supported. Like there is so much of that, that again, go back and listen to my last episode about therapy. That is my, like that is my passion. My passion is to make that space so accepting, so like supportive.
so encompassing and inviting and what other words? I just want it to be, I'm getting emotional thinking about it because if I had that when I was dancing and I felt like somebody had been there and done it and was able to support me and other dancers were agreeing with the questions I was asking or the things I was feeling, how validated would you feel? How much safer would you feel within this environment? And that is why.
We took that big pivot because this is my main passion. Yes, getting dancers to move better and understand their bodies better and all of those things. They all play together, the movement side, the mindset side and the community element. But at Move With Meg, we do all three and we do all three purposely because you need all three to develop and be a better Irish dancer, but also to develop and be a better person. And that is where like,
Again, that previous episode highlights the importance of developing positive patterns for these young dancers. It's not just about them winning medals and sashes and getting out of prelim. It's about them developing great patterns and emotional stability and awareness of themselves for their futures. I'm on a rant, I'm on a rant again. This is what happens when I get passionate about something.
So yeah, I suppose that's like my story to where I am right now. And then future goals, like I'm gonna develop the Goal Club even more. I want it to be the one thing that dancers need, the one place that they feel safe, they feel supported when spending time on their passion. So like, I just want it to be the place to be. I want it to be just like a staple item in every dancer's toolbox because
I want to be their best friend. I want to be their big sister. I want to be their number one supporter. And at Move With Meg, we really, really are facilitating that space. I know there's more that we can do to get there, but it is coming. We have big things coming next year and I literally like, there's loads I can't say and I'm like trying to be really careful of like what I can and can't say because there's so much coming. Next year is a really exciting year. I've planned the whole year. know what's happening exactly.
when and there are big things coming from us. I'm trying to think of what I can say. I can't wait to tell you about it, but for now, I suppose I can say, just think about how cool it would be to spend a bit of time with us in person.
us being like Movie Make team, Movie Make goal club members to spend time together as I've been talking about the importance of community, spending all this time together in person next summer. Imagine, just imagine.
get a bit excited. Anyway, finishing off, what do you want more of in the gold club? So like, if you can send me a message and if you think, I know, I'd love this in the gold club. That would make me want to spend more time there. Send me a message. It's your gold club. Yes, it is mine and it's move with Megs and we're trying to get it better all the time, but it's trying to get it better for you. So if you think, I'd love if it allowed me to do this or I'd love if it supported me in doing this. Let me know.
If I can do it, I'll do it, right? This is your brand as much as it is mine. And the community element doesn't stop at us supporting each other. It doesn't stop at you supporting me and helping me to develop a product that you want. So yeah, send me a little message if you've got any ideas or if there's anything that ever pops into your head. Like I want that in the Gold Club. Don't forget to like, subscribe and share your biggest takeaway from the podcast.
I just wanted to share a little feedback I got from a parent about an episode we did more recently in which she said, she's an ice skater, an ex ice skater, this parent. And she said, she's the youngest talent in her school and she's learned so much about the body as a former internationally competitive team skater, figure skater, sorry. She spent two years.
doing sports medicine, studying on focusing on skating and kids. So like very much kind of like what I do, but for skating. And what she said she sees as a newer dance parent is like the missing element of like the flexibility side of things and how important it is. So she said that.
All of this, she says, to say that I listened to your recent podcast with BJay about the Stabilisox and she was glued to it, like it was fascinating and feels so much more motivated on her quest to make sure that her dance has warmed up and stretched. So she just said like, when I'm cleaning the house, I feel like I do something for my dancer by listening to the podcast. The content is amazing and immediately transferable so I can have discussions with my daughter about dance and be the support that she needs.
She also said she shares them with other dance songs too. They are validating for us. Thank you for all that you do for this dance community. Cry. But messages like that, honestly, they kill me and they make this podcast worth doing. If I can help one person with one episode, then my job is done. So thank you for listening. If you can like, share and subscribe, that would be fantastic. And let us know any big takeaways you've had from this episode. I'll be back with another.
Solo episode very soon. Lots of love you guys. Thank you for listening. See you soon.
