S5E10: Going Digital with Wivi-Anne Nyberg
Ellie interviews Wivi-Anne Nyberg, a yoga teacher with over 20 years of experience.
Wivi-Anne shares her journey from a high-stress corporate career to finding solace in yoga and Ayurveda, leading her to teach and empower others in their holistic living. The conversation delves into Wivi-Anne's transition to the digital space, the challenges she faced, and the transformation in her business with the help of Ellie's expertise. Tune in to learn how Wivi-Anne's business thrives with simplicity, balance, and a passion for empowering others.
Transcript below!
You can connect with Wivi-Anne here:
Website: https://www.ayuryogaacademy.org
IG: @aya_ayuryogaacademy
Private group on FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/yogaandayurvedacommunity
Get Wivi-Anne's best resources here: https://www.ayuryogaacademy.org/freebies
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Ellie McBride: Welcome to the Capable Collective podcast, a place for women who want to ditch the overwhelm and learn to run their business with ease. I'm your host Ellie McBride, and I firmly believe that as women and non binary folks, we work best as a collective. So together with my expert guests, we are sharing the tools, systems, and ethos behind a simple yet thriving business.
Ready to dive in? Let's go. Let's
Hey, I'm so excited to have you here. I'm also really excited to have our guests today. Did he in and I worked together for the last few years and I'm often normal on various projects. And for the main part of her life, she worked in corporate. Mainly in finance and accounting. And, but in her thirties, during her career, as a CEO with a high load of stress, She started to feel an ache moving around in her body. Yoga became her solution as we'll talk about. To eliminate the pain and it also led her down a path she has followed ever since.
She's now been teaching yoga for more than 20 years. And it's become her passion and companion. So much so that the valuable effects of yoga. For her we're to be truthful to herself, build faith in her inner power and then her life. And B. Able to create the life she wants to live.
Adding Ayurveda to her palette. I was the solution for her to live a more balanced life with sustained health and a higher wellbeing. Um, With the inner power becoming her empowering navigator. Now, as we said, she has been teaching yoga for 20 years.
And then the last 10 has been educating hundreds of women on their personal journey, becoming more of who they really are and finding a way to live a balanced, sustainable lifestyle, truthful to themselves and their purpose.
We have brought. Over time. Vivian really into the digital space through and have set up a lot of tools for her.
I cannot wait to dive into this conversation.
right, Vivian. Thank coming on the podcast.
Uh, As we'll get into you and I've worked together off and on for a good few years now, and I just can't wait for listeners to hear about what and, um, like how we've worked together and how that's
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: I'm just
Ellie McBride: How are you doing
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Just recovered from a, from a cold and yeah, I'm so happy to be on your podcast. So please. So thank you so much for inviting me.
Ellie McBride: course, of course. So to kick us off, do you want to share a little bit about your business inspired you my business started quite some years ago. I have been teaching yoga for 20 years and really jumped off my career as a CEO 10 years ago to teach and to educate people. Fully. And then I opened a big health center, kind of, I think it was 2016 or something like that, which I closed down due to the pandemic.
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: And at that time, after that, I just investigated, okay, what to do now and really gave myself some time to reflect. And, but that gave me an education I took online and gave me the inspiration to do it, do the same thing. So. 2021, I think I went digitally with the yoga school that I was, had been running for kind of eight or 10 years. And then a little bit into that a year in, I think I met you or I searched for you. I was recommended to you. Yeah.
Ellie McBride: Yeah. And so what brought you into doing, you know, working
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: That was actually saving myself from stress. I was in the middle of my life, 35, three kids that was, you know, kind of eight, 10 years old or so, and working as a CEO, running from here to there and started to have a moving around in my body. And I went to. I didn't take any medications because I don't like medications.
So I went to different kind of therapists, but realizing after a year or so going, I mean, more regularly, kind of every week, I realized that I didn't actually heal the underlying cause. So then it was recommended to another therapist that, Read me out, so to speak. So he just saw that, okay, something is going deeply wrong in her.
Like he, he probably saw all the stress that I had. So he recommended me into yoga and I just, first of all, he said, you can't, I don't think you should practice or exercise train that much as you do. I was, you know, spinning and biking and gym and things like that. And he just, and I asked him, okay, what can I do?
You can go for a walk. And I just, what? I was only 35 at the time and I didn't even think about walking was any kind of exercise. So and I had tried yoga and imagine 20, 22 years ago, it was not that common with yoga in the. Fitness world, it was, you know, more fluffy and a little bit, you know, in small studios and, and yeah, it wasn't that big industry as it is right now, but that was my path in.
So few months in, I just realized, okay, my ache is disappearing. That was my gateway into yoga, both practicing, but also starting to teach quite early after that. Yeah.
Ellie McBride: Right. really cool. Um, And I think that that's in a way, a lot of us end up learning things that we need to either yet to cope in life or that spark or creativity or And then we end up teaching that. So similar to me as without going too much into it, as you know, like systems are the thing that.
And, and really give me like structure to my me feel safe. Um, And then I started doing that
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I didn't think at all because I was really happy in a way I was and also, I mean, I, I love to just teach two, three classes a week, but then I started to study Ayurveda as well, which is an Indian medicine, natural science, you can say, and that made a really big shift in me.
And that's when I, you know, I didn't want to work in the corporate world that way anymore. And I wanted to more help people in the holistic living. So yeah. And then I started to do that fully.
Ellie McBride: really So tell me, so coming back to where you transitioned from having, you know, an in person center to moving your work online, tell me about some of the biggest challenges you were facing before we started working together and kind of what brought you.
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Well, just taking the decision going digitally was a huge step because I mean, I have had a Facebook account and an Instagram account for years. Face and Instagram, I wasn't there at all. I just had it. I had an account. And then, you know, as a person, I'm 58 and I was 55 at the time when I moved to the digital world and I just, Oh, everything was so overwhelming.
Where to start. And I also moved from always have been teaching in Swedish, moving it out. I just, why should I be limited by finding students with Swedish language? So I just went. Digitally and in English, I mean, internationally. So, and then I took a quite an intense course in how go, do you move your business digitally, especially specified for yoga teachers.
And it was really overwhelming. And I was a little bit of exhausted at the time or not little, I was, I was recovering from an exhaustion that. Occurred when I closed my health center and those kinds of things. But that wasn't the thing that brought me to, to feeling that was overwhelming. It was overwhelming where to start.
I didn't have, I didn't have a knowledge about how to send out newsletters. I didn't know at all how to create a website. Of course I had a website to my, my other health center, but somebody else did everything on that website. So everything was really from scratch. So, yeah, I found that was a connection.
I had friend of mine's son and he was a colleague to my beloved one. So he was what is he? He's not a web designer, more a graphic designer, I think, but he ended up helping me out, creating a logo for me and creating my website on Squarespace, but we were really in a struggling, he's a really good guy and he's a great guy.
And he's very, very good at what he's doing, but he always work in WordPress. So he was, and I didn't want to go to WordPress and he, he understood that. And he recommended me to go to Squarespace, but he was struggling more than he thought he should, when he promised me to help me out, but still he helped me out and that was good.
But then we just realized, okay, you are not a pro on Squarespace. You're pro on other things. I need to find somebody else. So in, yeah, and in, in the community, I had decided to go for active campaign as my email provider, marketing provider. And within that unit with that community, somebody knew about you and recommended me to, to connect with you.
And I'm so happy that I did. I couldn't, I couldn't have done this without.
Ellie McBride: That's amazing. Cause I don't think, I don't think I remembered that that's how Um, But so yeah, so you were looking at really getting online when we first met and you had a but it wasn't like, it wasn't as slick as you'd like it to be. So you sort of originally came to me being like, can you tidy up parts of my website?
You know, I love my brand. I love what I offer. But there's. Needs to be, I'll guess a little more cleanness, a little more functionality going on with the website. And so we started there, and very quickly it turned into, okay, well I'm also going to be creating these online programs and these online courses Where do we do those?
How do we want to make it work? And we decided also Um, How did you initially feel about the idea of implementing sort of those online systems that we did with the courses and scheduling and those kinds of things in your
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Well, it was like we, before I met you, we had put up my two yoga teachers trainings on my website, but obviously we put them as products, which I mean, I wanted the membership. I wanted to have like people, my students navigating on my website to the course and through the, throughout the course. So. If I don't remember wrong, we took a kind of a discovery call you and I quite for like an hour or so.
So you could understand what I saw that I thought I needed. And actually, to be honest, I had the idea how I wanted it to look like transformed into my brand and so on and so forth. Due to, I had taken a 300 hours teacher's training myself just to, you know, recover and to get more inspiration and those kinds of things for a really good yoga teacher in, in the States.
And so I got quite some ideas from him because I signed up going to taking his training in person, but we only did the first module then the pandemic hit us. So he couldn't come to Germany where it and he was located in the States. So he needed to make this transformation. So I took his training a year after and he had done really good work, even though he worked in WordPress.
But I mean, I got some ideas how I wanted it to look like, like modules and things like that. So I just, I just gave you the picture I had, and then you, you just transformed it to exactly what I wanted and even, even better, even better to be honest. Yeah. Because you had ideas that I, yeah, that I don't, that I didn't know.
I mean, technologies and to have a structure that is really, you know, looks good, but also easy to work with for me and for my students.
Yeah, totally. And that's where I really thrive. I think that that is probably one of my biggest skill sets is that ability to take a lot of content, a lot of data and really structure it in a way that's really pretty and really once. Um, I think that's something that not everyone can do, but it's something really well.
Um, But I think you and I also got really lucky in the sense that. Almost every time we were trying to achieve something, whether it be a course or a video library for or something like that, um, Squarespace was coming out with the
tools sort of right at the right time. Right? So Squarespace has really been actively pushing to create more ways for you to sell your services.
Um, And so. Prior to three years ago, there wasn't space in Squarespace properly for members areas or courses or selling video libraries. They've just monetized blogs. Um, And there were ways to do it before. Like I had built memberships in Squarespace before, but it took third um, We even talked about potentially doing some of that because some of the features weren't there yet, but they are now, Um, So yeah, I think it's been really, really great. So for just a recap, things that I've worked with Vivian for, we have tidied up her website a couple of different times as her server services offerings have changed. Uh, We've moved you onto acuity scheduling so that you can. Sell your time or end a book, your group classes for your programs and things like that with a lot of ease and get all the forms and data that you need.
And we've also got more than 1, I think, 3 or 4 of your programs or courses up in Squarespace members areas. And that's been a lot of fun to, to get all of that up for you.
But I also, can I add on because I
Ellie McBride: So.
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: think you did a really good, really a great job when I two months ago created the summit. I got,
Yeah.
I got so feedback, how professional it looked like, how the calendar worked and all kinds of things. And you both created the free version and then copied it kind of a way to be able to also sell it afterwards.
So yeah, you came up with so many ideas. I just wanted to run a summit and I didn't actually have much of an idea how to do it, to be honest.
Ellie McBride: Yeah, that was really cool because we were able to set it up similar to the way we set up some of your courses. area. Um, We did have some really interesting hurdles. I love this type of stuff because I get so geeky in the research phase. We had some interesting were, um, Having affiliates and things that me and your tech VA were kind of figuring out.
Um, But you hosted this really, really cool online summit and you did a free version. And then of course people could pay for it after or pay for lifetime access during it. So we created another one that they Sign up for, um, in either case that was then paid and yeah, we created a really useful calendar that was, um, integrated to Google calendar so people could subscribe to it and have everything in their own calendar and that, um, all of the guest speakers and stuff had all the information they sessions.
Um, That a lot of fun. Thank you for letting me work
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: crazy.
Ellie McBride: get so excited.
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Yeah, but it was, it was really, and guess really much feedback about very much about the simplicity to reach the light, like the live sessions in the calendar, but also the pre recorded videos. Yeah.
Ellie McBride: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the key to that a lot of times is place, um, because people are going to look in the calendar if there is one, but then some people's brains will go straight to the videos. And so we had access to them in there as well, if they were prerecorded or even the links would have been there if they were going to be a So that was, um, just one of those things that my brain was like, you just need to make sure that it's, it's, it's easily accessible for the way that various people's brains
work. So tell me a bit about how you find have or have found in the overtime collaborating
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: I've told you so many times, but I want, I would love to tell, well, once. I love the way both that you are really interested in the business that I have. I mean, you are not in the yogic world, but you want to understand what is I want to offer, but also how do I want it to look like in a way that is one really good thing with you, but also you don't only take my information, but instead you are telling me what I can do because I don't know those things behind the scenes.
You are exactly the person, that kind of person that I want to work with because I want you to tell me the options or the opportunities that I have. And sometimes I have, like in the summit, we, we came to a problem, but you, you and my tech VA, you figured out how. So I really, I really, really appreciate that.
Like not only what am I telling you that I want, and then, okay, I set that up, but you are kind of curious and do you want this? So do you want that? Or how do you think about this option? Or that those, those things I really
appreciate with, appreciate with you.
Ellie McBride: yeah, thanks. I think it's really fun to come at. I think that's the thing is I don't believe there's one right way to do anything. I want to know what you're trying to achieve, what problems you're trying to solve, as well as how you want it to look, how you want it to function, it feel.
Um, Because all of those things will help me get a clearer picture on the right software, the right and the right, um, sort of features to make sure we're building out for you. And, you know, simplicity was at the key of a lot of what we were doing, which is part of why we did everything in Squarespace.
We could have built out more robust features in another software. But that would have been a trade off for some of the simplicity or some of the, like, niceness that everything in your world sort of lives in your, in, within Squarespace now. You don't really have as many external tools other than ActiveCampaign,
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: And also what I also, what I also like you is that you, you almost always you, you reply to me. Quite, quite quick, but also you used to send me a kind of a short video, a loom or something like that. So I can both understand what you have done, not in details, but what I need to know, and then also teaching me how to use it myself, since it's a small business, I want to have five years afterwards to, to run all my business, but I'm not there.
So, and still I want to know my business behind the scenes. So I really appreciate that the simplicity that you have been educating me to understand and guided me how to, to make the work that you do, and then how can I change it? And how can I move forward?
Ellie McBride: Yeah, I think that's one of my that's one of my core values really is educating people and business owners, how to use the tools in their own business. That's why I design in Squarespace for websites is because I want people to be able to then go and update a picture or add a blog not need me for that.
Um, I don't mind helping with those things if it's, if it's necessary or they're really busy, but for the most part, like I want people to ownership of their website, um, and feel, and cause there's so many, especially which sometimes can be a bit clunky. There's so many designers. That, you know, you need one little thing change on your website and you have to email them and then you're waiting and it's just, that's not how I wanted to do business.
And then with systems, it's quite similar. I like with the simplicity solution, we have several calls and they're all recorded where you can ask any questions about your software, but also any software that I set up or build out or tweak for you. I record you a full loom video on how to use it. And the reason I love loom is because it's got, um, like automated chapters.
I pay for a little bit of. They're AI automates chapters, um, really good transcripts. It's all searchable. And I feel like that's just, it makes a really
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Yeah, I have.
Ellie McBride: Like you have a whole
folder in my loom that I can share with you. And, and you, you know, then you can go back to any of those videos at any
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Yeah. And I really appreciate that. And that was one of the, One of the main reasons I didn't want to work in Word, WordPress, because I knew that I can't handle that myself because I don't want to, that is not what I'm good at. And I believe that we should do what we are good at. So it was, but I mean, the simplicity in Squarespace and the way you have set it up and educated me, that works really, really good for me.
Ellie McBride: Well, I'm glad to hear it. So we've talked a little bit about this, but if you can make, like, just describe how you think that. Since we've set up all these systems and processes and your business that we've discussed, what do you feel like is different about the day to day of your business? that it's
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: it's more, more things are
Ellie McBride: things is freeing up
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: automatically. Like confirmation emailed to when somebody's booking a coaching call, for instance also the booking in my, my larger program where we have quite many appointments that are live, my students only need to click once, and then they have all the live sessions during the course booked in their calendar.
So. time saving time and also saving me from frustration because it's easy to work with. Yeah. And I just love it. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellie McBride: headspace, um, and hopefully for clients money, honestly, in the end of the day, because you're to go And
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: time, I mean, I am, I'm giving service, so my time is money. So yeah. If I don't lose that much time on doing things that I didn't have to do so. Yeah, for sure.
Ellie McBride: Looking Back, is there anything that you would have done differently or any advice you'd give about, give to somebody who might be thinking about working with me?
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Oh, that was, that, that, that was a tricky one. Not to, maybe I should say,
sorry.
Ellie McBride: Feel free to take minute. Oh, I just said, feel free to a
minute.
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: I shouldn't change anything in our work together. What I should say is perhaps take help earlier. Sometimes it's, sometimes it's when you are a small business or you're just starting and you're just trying to solve it. But I do think giving, giving you the time to do, I mean, to set it up in a longer term, quite easy, you will calculate it backwards and you will understand that you have saved so much trouble for yourself, headaches, frustration, and at the end.
It won't turn up that good. So very, very many times I think as a small business owner, and if you, you know, something, you are trying to do it yourself. And then at the end, you're ending up taking help anyway. And then that person like you need to, you know, adjust things that didn't have to be adjust.
Perhaps if we have done it from the beginning in a way, it doesn't make sense what I said.
Ellie McBride: Yeah, no, totally. Like, I think that's something that I talk, talked about a lot in the start of my business. I don't talk about as much earlier now, but I think outsourcing earlier than you typically might feel ready for can so vulnerable. Um, It can feel like you're giving away something so precious.
You've worked so hard on your business, but you're right. The soon, like, if you do it, if you give it to somebody. That actually is like an expert in what they're doing. It's going to save you all those things you talked about, the time, the headaches, and you're right. It's going to be done better from the get go.
Right.
And there's always balance to be struck with small business. Like, you know, you have to make those calls about where you're going to spend your time or your energy um, yeah, I think when you can. And then make the right call about spending the money with someone who's going be a really good fit for your
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: And then one thing that I have been evaluating a lot, I mean, it doesn't have to do with you nor with Squarespace is my decision on, because it was a hard thing for me to decide where to put my website and where to which email provider I should have. And that has been a little bit tricky combining because the integration between ActiveCampaign and Squarespace is not that, that good.
But I had, and this is maybe not for your podcast, but they are working on it, active campaign. So that's a good thing for Squarespace to know. Yeah, yeah,
yeah,
Ellie McBride: nice. A lot of Squarespace is only native immigrant integration with an email marketing tools actually with MailChimp and MailChimp is like, I um, there's better MailerLite, um, but, um, If you're using anything MailChimp or campaigns, uh, which is their um, usually it involves a little bit of code.
So I use flow desk, you use active campaign. Those can be a little bit of code. Um, MailerLite it's the same, but you're right. It's nicest. Um, And if you're not familiar with code and you just copy and paste in what they kind of give you, and you don't. Tweak it at all.
Sometimes it doesn't look as pretty as you want. So another reason to either find a developer or book a power hour with
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: exactly. Exactly. So
Ellie McBride: which is what I love offering those power hours where somebody has got a really good website, but they just need it finessed. And I love doing it.
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: is
Ellie McBride: Um, Okay. So tell us about what's coming up for your business. What do you see going forward with the systems that we've set up? Like what's coming down the pipeline for you?
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: to create a few more offers like courses, but smaller ones, because I can see like. I mean, I'm so used to have work in person where I have a natural flow with people moving out in, on, in the online world and internationally, it's like they need to get to know me. So the main thing actually is to create a few more options.
I have one basic course and I have one big program to put something in between and something smaller offers for people to get to know me. So that is the, the, the big things for 2024.
Ellie McBride: Yes. Like a more bite sized offer that people can learn about, you know, to, to, can experience who you are, what you have to offer without, before they potentially
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: Yeah, it is, it is. I feel really excited.
Ellie McBride: Well, speaking of places that know you and, um, get a bit bite size of your work, I'll put it in show notes, but, uh, Vivian has very good, uh, freebies on her website. You've got three free online yoga and, um, they're just Um, I just like, like you offer such value in your I should probably put it clearer than that.
So you, you teach about Yin meditation, um, and you kind of really reframe things that are talked about so differently in a lot of the wellness or yoga spaces. You've got a really unique angle on what you do.
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: I, I think it is because I have been coaching for so many years, I also involve Ayurveda. That is the essence is to live a balanced lifestyle. So you can be. Yoga teacher, a really good one, but if you're not living balanced yourself, yeah, so I, I involved that or combine those two teachings or wisdoms you can say.
Ellie McBride: right. That's so cool. Like it's something that without getting too much into it, something that I've been working on and exploring more, um, lately, because I would be quite an anxious person and I've gotten much better at it over the years. I, you know, started with therapy and all sorts, but there's just, it's funny.
I'm learning that while my brain is much, much better, my body still sometimes isn't. So it's somatic me that I'm learning more and more about.
So tell everyone where they can Well, the best way of course, is my website, ioyogaacademy. org. And then it's mostly the most easy and convenient places is Instagram. Where is AYA, A Y A underscore Ayo Yoga Academy, or my name. They can Google my name as well, or search for my name as well, Vivian Nyberg.
Fantastic. I will, again, all these links will be in the show notes on the website. So you will be able to find everything you need to about Vivian. Um, Thank you so much for being here, sharing your business story, sharing about our work together. I really appreciate you taking
Wivi-Anne Nyberg: I'm so happy to, to, to be here. I mean, I love the work we do together. So thank you, Ellie.
Ellie McBride: Thank you for listening to the capable collective podcast. I really hope you enjoyed this episode and have gotten value from it. If you did, please subscribe on your chosen listening platform. And if you happen to be listening over on Apple podcasts, please take a moment to leave a review. It helps other people to find and trust this podcast and it would mean the world to me.
Thank you so much. Again, have a great day.
