ATSuccess Week 2 - Feb 2014

What is turning about to be a re-run of my 30 Day Challenge exercise last year, but this time morphing into a series on how to write an effective sales letter that appeals to your niche and bring people to your sessions. You can jump in any time - and now's a good time - to be energized into creating a captivating appeal to your students. Click here now and join us all. *** On How To Deploy A Sales Letter Your sales letter is like a blue print: it creates talking points when you are being interviewed, it can be broken up into an email auto-responder series, it can be a landing page that lets them sign up through PayPal, it can be a script for a video series, it gives you talking points at a party - get the idea? On What Language To Use In A Sales Letter One piece of advice: keep your language simple. Words like "eroded" are edging towards the obtuse. For greater impact into a person unconscious, using words that were already embedded back in 6th grade go deeper into a person's psyche. Review what you have written with that mind. Being clever with words does not equate with being effective with your message. You can be simplistic and straight-forward, because often that will be more effective. On How To Decide The Focus of A Sales Letter Test it can you? Select two distinct groups in your niche and give one the "wide" version and one the "focused" version of your sales letter, then find a way of tracking their response. You are an academic, this is a scientific question that needs research, not opinion. About the Value Of Money Somewhere back in reading this long thread I was inspired to share this idea: money is an effective feedback mechanism that doesn't care that you think, what you believe. It's easy to be delusional, easy to talk your Self into a position about what your should and shouldn't do vis-a-vis marketing - but the reality is that when you have effective marketing, you have more students. The proof of that is you earn money. (As a side bar: free lessons rarely create effective learning environments.) When you don't have students, you don't earn money. People only give you their money when they trust that you have something they want. If they don't want to give you their money, you are being ineffective in communicating what you have - plain and simple - especially if you believe that what you have is something they need. Money is not inherently anything - we project onto to whatever our values of the day. But money has the wonderful quality of giving us feedback about how effective our messaging is. When 10 people sign up to my workshop because of what they read, rather than 3 people, I know I am somehow getting through. I am being more effective at communication. Like Tom, I will use the words that they understand. I love having such a reliable, objective feedback system. On Getting A Website I just LOVE the dogged way you pursue your websites agenda Robert Rickover. You really inspire me. We are working on our CareerThinking program at BodyChance to the extent that we will one day make it a requirement that students at our school starts create their own website and niche biz plan as part of their education to become a teacher. I flopped in America, but I still plug away at it in Japan. My Personal Facebook Group The second half of to-day's blog contains posts from ATSuccess Group in Facebook. These contain personal or specific information that is inappropriate for public scrutiny. You can join the group by becoming a member. Participants in my Facebook group enjoy the protection to express things privately. Trusting each other this way creates a context for risk taking. In ATSuccess no-one cares where you trained, they only care that you succeed at it. The public gets to decide how well you teach, not us.

*On Drilling Down In Your Sales Letter Alleluia Constance - now there's a lady knows what she's talking about! Very impressive. Go deep like that as you write your sales letter: as long as you have a clear USP focus, making your point in 10 different ways is fascinating to the person who knows, and boring to all the rest. Forget about the ones who are bored - they won't come to your sessions anyway - write for the ones who are fascinated, because they will come. There is enough of them, right? *On How To Give Empathy in A Sales Letter Constance - you want to create more identification to their pain in your opening words. "Does your trainer say this, that and the other" you ask. Well yes. But HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? is the point. You want to talk into what they are feeling: their frustration, their confusion, their need to get it right, to be the best. Along these lines: "Do you feel confused and frustrated when you keep being told to sit deeper, sit taller? I bet you no idea what that really means?! Don't you wish someone would explain it to you better! Well that's I do - I explain things so you can actually follow your trainers instructions and get praised (although he won't know why you suddenly got better). Not only that - YOU will notice a huge difference in the way you move. blah blah." Do you see where I am taking it? It's about identifying and giving empathy to the tender spot they have about their practise. Try to rewrite it that way - OK? *On Writing A Sales Letter Cecile - it's looking good but way too short. Here's your next exercise: find someone who is good at objecting and complaining about things, and does Yoga. Have them tell you every reason why they would NOT want to come to your class: what concerns them? what are their questions? what do they object to? what are they frightened of? Another way is just to list down all the complaints you have heard from students over the years. Once you have that list - ANSWER EVERY OBJECTION IN YOUR SALES LETTER. Anything and everything that would stop a person signing up with you - you need to address that in your sales letter. Next blog I will be giving you a more detailed structure, but your homework (and everyone reading this) is to make the list of every possible objection that anyone who loves Yoga (horse riding, back repair in dentistry, dancing - where's Dana these days? - etc etc) and then find compelling reasons that overcome these objections. Your sales letter needs that imputed into it now. *Finding Your Yoga Niche Cecile you wrote: "Does it mean they are my niche?" YES!!! Then: "However, I want to work with everyone interested within the yoga community." NO!!! Hidden in your comment I sense a powerful USB lurking: "Sick and tired of Yoga teachers who cause you injury? Love to practise but don't know how without hurting your Self? Hi, I am Cecile and it's my mission to get you back on your beloved mat by revealing the real secret that it is what you do OFF the matt that causes injury! I call it Off-The-Matt-Yoga and it would by my privilege to get you back into doing what you love!" Followed this with an AMAZING testimonial of someone confined to a wheelchair for 47 years who scratched the back of their neck with their big toe during the first lesson they had! Get the idea? With the right people listening, that will be a very powerful pitch on what your research is showing you... *On Going Away or Going Towards Jann - make the heading your USB. I assume you are handing this flyer our at a place where musicians and teachers hang out? So why waste precious space on your flyer restating the obvious? I don't get it. Instead, lead with the benefit - what are words that catch the attention fo ""Music Performers and Teachers"? You want them to that first! Next is a tricky one: which is the main urge (you have learnt from them previously) that triggers their interest? Are they wanting to get away (from pain) or are they thinking going towards joyfulness? Whatever you answer to that question: THAT IS WHAT THE HEADLINE NEEDS TO BE ABOUT. Like a good newspaper headline - everything is built into the headline: who it's for, what the benefit is, how long it will take. Pack it all if you can. At the moment you are leading with a going towards sentence. Is that about them, or is it about what you want for them? I don't know, but's my job to ask the question. *On Aniko's Dentistry Project If anyone can do this - it is you Aniko. Your approach is sound - I see that. It's a pleasure to support a person with such passion, intelligence, practicality and determination. With those qualities, it's not possible for you to make anything other than a long lasting impression on your profession. How it ends we don't know, the final way we only guess, but the outcome is assured - the work will have greater presence and influence in the world of density by the time you are done. What a great way to use your life. *On How To Write A Sales Letter You have got your avatar clear Constance - so visualize one of those woman, and write to her. It's great when you are working on your sales letter to be projecting an image of the person you are talking to. We do it all the time in life anyway, now bring it into writing. In effect, you are practicing the conversation you will have with them at a live Introduction to your work. *On Becoming A Self-Help Guru Yes Jennifer, I know Brendan. Isn't he the Knowledge Academy guy? How to be an authority? He's probably into other things too, it's just how I first knew him. Here's what I discovered: Self-Help is a tough market. If you look at Brendan, making money is still at the heart of his pitch. Are you adding that? If not, it's a slog. That's my experience - I went for doing Personal Life Coaching in Japan for a few years, it was all uphill. Try by all means, it's only my experience. I was going through separation then, not at the top of my game. Test it out first though, before you commit big. *On Creating A Better Profession Too right Adrian - co-operative efforts is how the Yoga, Pilates people get the economic muscle to grow. Those Professionals give themselves the street cred to be taken seriously. We have neither. It's possible for us - it takes a change of culture, and that happens slowly. But it can happen. Posts from My London Group This is a temporary group I offered participants of my recent London workshop. It finishes this month, but I will share what I have been advising to that group here… On How To Develop Your Skill In A Niche You have enough skill: give up the comparison game, there's no future in that. The skill you really require is being able to understand, empathize and guide the mind of a runner. Can you do that? Then no-one can surpass you, not at all. THIS is the primary skill - it's psychological, not pedagogical. Work on that first and success will start to follow. Discover: Who are they? (age, location, profession, family, other interests) What do they worry about? What is their deepest, hidden wish? Can you answer those questions? If you can, and believe you have antidote for those concerns, and can explain how that works for them - well, you are on the way to a successful career as a teacher of runners (using AT principles). Go for it. On Wondering If Participants Learnt Anything Ask them - do you collect feedback at the end of every workshop? Make it a practise. Tell them at the beginning of the session that it would help you if they took 5 minutes after the session to offer you some feedback on what they learnt. Have a form and pens ready for them to do this. (Sometimes I do this with an via email after the workshop, but this is less powerful.) You can have a little check box for them to tick at the bottom: "I give my permission to use this as a testimonial. Thank you for your work." You get feedback and testimonials for the future. Make it a habit, and then you know better what your students are thinking, and what contents will excite them to attend future workshops. On What To Offer A Yoga Centre Do you want to give three sessions on one week because you think it is a better way to communicate your work, or you want to give three because it improves your income, or a third reason, or a fourth? Taking the first two only then: The former will be heard differently from the latter - intention is all. I first make sure I have a remarkable service that I totally believe in, then I sell, sell, sell. Money does not flow to need, just as love does not flow to need either. You believe in you and what you have to give, and offer the service you believe is best, at a price you deserve. Be ready to walk away - it's the only way to sell and make love. No grasping, no attachment - pure, free love of what you have to offer, under the terms stated! On Deciding On A Niche In terms of the niche question - are we talking one workshop (hard) or a concerted effort over time (easier)? If it's the former, go for it, but expect an uphill battle to enroll people. If it's the latter, then the size of your niche needs to be sufficient to sustain you over many years. A thumb nail size for that is 15,000 in your geographic area, or wider if you are prepared to travel. Also ensure that 1. They have excess income after paying for their Zumba lessons to pay for your AT sessions; and 2. They at least have a magazine, an annual meeting and some discussion forums online. Without those, it will prove too expensive to reach them. *** Anything to add? A new thread? https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/