Footloose: Entrepreneur dances to success

When Evelyn Squires launched her dance studio five years ago in partnership with her mother-in-law, Heather Squires, she made one crucial, yet common, misstep.

She focused too much on the passion, and not enough on the business basics. “I was a dancer,” Evelyn Squires tells Coffee Talk. “I thought as long as I offered dance lessons, the studio would thrive.”

That led to some early struggles. But the studio, after five years of trial and error, in addition to significant assistance from nonprofit business counseling service Manasota Score, is now flourishing.

In fact Sam's Club recently named the studio, Sarasota-based Revelle Academy, one of the top 100 small businesses in a nationwide contest. Squires, who also runs La Pointe Dance and Fitness Wear, won a $1,000 Sam's Club gift card, which she used for supplies and business software. Plus, there were two other prizes: A trip to Texas for a two-day Score High Speed Growth Seminar, and a professional video produced by Sam's Club for YouTube on how the business works.

Sam's Club, through its Holiday Cheer for Small Business Program, analyzed every angle of the studio for the contest. Says Squires: “They want to know you will stay in business and continue to grow.”

A native of Norway, Squires trained in ballet with the Royal Academy of Dancing starting when she was 12. She later danced with the Royal Norwegian Opera Ballet and, after she moved to the U.S., in several performance groups in Utah and Seattle. She relocated with her family to Sarasota five years ago and decided to open the studio.

Revelle Academy now serves up to 235 students a year, more than double since it opened. Squires, with the help of her Score mentor, Charlie Sax, also developed a long-range business plan for a retail component. She now sells dance and fitness wear, both out of the studio and online. The online component, actually, is where Squires sees the biggest potential for growth in 2013.

Sax, says Squires, has additionally taught her a valuable lesson that doesn't always show up in a business plan. That would be the value of getting to know other entrepreneurs, in any field. Says Squires: “He's helped me understand how important networking is in business.”