Last spring, Jennifer Beaumont had a 10-year plan. The yoga teacher, trained in the classical Iyengar method, hoped to one day stop instructing students under someone else’s roof and start directing her own yoga studio.

At the time, she said, “I didn’t have any practical [business] sense at all.”

This month, in only a fraction of the time she had anticipated, Beaumont celebrated a milestone with the grand opening of Yoga on the Hill, the studio she owns and directs. The bright space at 609 Lyon St. NE is fully equipped with props, a rope wall, changing room, and a yoga library. Beaumont, West Michigan’s only Iyengar certified teacher, offers classes for all ages and skill levels, as well as private instruction and practice study hours.

While strong role models and a passion for her practice are, in part, what drove this entrepreneur, it was the lessons learned and connections made in a class offered by Grand Rapids Opportunities for Women, a nonprofit organization that provides women with business and economic training, that steered her in the right direction.

By the Numbers
Beaumont’s success story is one of many to emerge from the classrooms on the second floor of 25 Sheldon Blvd. SE, where GROW is based. In 2005, the organization’s economic impact included 117 businesses reporting nearly $6.5 million in sales, 40 newly opened businesses, and the development of some 270 new jobs.

According to Rita VanderVen, who has served as GROW’s Executive Director since 2000, the programs don’t offer a handout, but rather a hand up. Women and men (who comprised 18 percent of the agency’s clients, according to the most recent statistics) of a variety of socio-economic backgrounds file into GROW classes with the goal of getting their finances in order, starting their own business, or improving the operations of an existing enterprise. Program fees are determined by a sliding scale, based on income, and scholarships are available to qualifying students.

“This is about showing people a better way to live,” VanderVen said. “It’s not just about finance – it’s about confidence, as well.”

Leading the Way
Regionally, VanderVen says that GROW is known as the ‘go-to’ place for start-up businesses. So how is it that one Grand Rapids agency has earned such a reputation? For one thing, it was somewhat of a pioneer.

In 1989, the U.S. Small Business Administration, which partially funds GROW, opened the Office of Women’s Business Ownership. That same year, LeAnne Moss saw a need in Grand Rapids for programming that would help women in transition find economic stability. With the help of numerous women and men in the community, Moss founded GROW.

“Grand Rapids is very forward-thinking in that way,” VanderVen said.

Even today, GROW is one of only 94 agencies of its kind in the nation and, so far, the results have impressed. Nationally, 85 percent of all businesses fail in the first two years.

“We do much better than that,” VanderVen said.

Minding Your Own Business, the intensive course that prepped Beaumont for business ownership, is offered twice annually and boasts over 700 graduates to date. At the end of MYOB, each student walks away with a valuable resource: a business plan. The students create the plans under the tutelage of local business experts who volunteer their time.

It’s the Network
"The beauty of [MYOB] is that we bring in professionals from across the area,” VanderVen said. “It’s a wonderful design and a great way to learn, especially for clients with economic and social barriers.”

Many people, she said, aren’t connected with professionals and mentors who can help them succeed. Currently, GROW has over 80 professionals from various businesses and organizations volunteering time and expertise.

Before taking MYOB, Jennifer Beaumont, the yoga instructor, had no business background whatsoever. She holds a degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and a teaching certificate from Aquinas College, and spent a year in San Francisco training under an advanced Iyengar yoga teacher. But without knowing, for example, that expenses like training and travel are deductible, “you end up suffering from your own ignorance,” she said. Beaumont plans to spend two months studying the Iyengar method in India this year.

Instructors aren’t the only people in GROW classes who encourage students to achieve their goals: the relationships forged among participants also offer a considerable level of support. Beaumont went into MYOB thinking she would continue to be an independent contractor for awhile. She was considering renting a room at the YMCA to teach courses when she noticed the space at 609 Lyon. The more she talked with her classmates about this perfect space, the more they encouraged her to strike while the iron was hot.

“They said, ‘You should do this now, before you have kids,’” Beaumont said. “All of a sudden, everyone in the room would just root for you.”

Life Lessons
While Beaumont is finding that much of business ownership is about learning as you go (before opening her studio, for instance, she never had to explain the construction of a rope wall to a contractor), GROW helped her with practical aspects of the business, such as marketing and setting costs.

“It helped me figure out ‘What do I need to do to make sure we’re still here next year?’”

She did not take her business plan to the bank, but the exercise was anything but fruitless.

“Writing a business plan gives you a lot of confidence,” she said. Beaumont used details from it in her marketing materials, and said that it may come in handy if she ever needs a loan in the future for a building purchase.

Besides the core class, GROW offers Economic Literacy, which focuses on personal finance, monthly networking events, seminars on financing and marketing among other topics, and mentoring.

Many GROW clients, VanderVen said, never start a business. But classes like Economic Literacy can change everything. “Students come away saying, ‘This taught me a better way to live.’ It’s not just about a business plan, but a life plan, if you pay attention to what you learn.”

Beaumont said it is not enough to be an expert in something to fulfill the personal dream of owning your own business.

“You have to be an expert in how you are going to provide the service,” she said.

And while she is confronted every day with challenges and situations she has never before seen, Beaumont regularly draws on her experience with GROW to feel “a lot lighter, less stressed, and very satisfied” in her business dealings.

Photo captions:

Jennifer Beaumont demonstates the Vasisthasana pose

Jennifer Beaumont in her studio

Jennifer Beaumont demostrates the Bhujangasana pose

The rope wall

Hand pose - Tadasana to Urdhva Hastasana

The studio

Photographs by Brian Kelly - All Rights Reserved