Checking the Mail Box

Where I live in Australia, we have three mail boxes out front. It’s at the bottom of a steep driveway, so someone needs to walk the letters up to the house. One mailbox is disused, and lies neglected on it’s side. One is usually empty - that’s mine, because I check it regularly - and the one is full of letters. Full of actual letters: bills, a Xmas card, notices of many different kinds. Maybe there’s some junk mail there too, but not the kind of junk I would risk just throwing in the bin. However, my tenants downstairs never check their mailbox. I used to bring it up the hill for them, and then one day I wondered: what would happen if I didn’t do this final delivery? I wondered this, because after every trip to Japan I would come back and their mailbox would be full again. So last time I was in Australia, I stopped bringing up their letters, wondering what would happen. I just got back to Australia yesterday and the verdict is in… Yep, the box is even fuller! They pass this box every day. There are so many letters now, you can see them pocking out. Sometimes it rains, so the top letters are water warped and disfigured. It doesn’t matter. They still don’t empty the mail box. There’s now even a hand written Xmas card sitting there unattended. This behaviour is incomprehensible to me. It is beyond common sense. Yet it teaches me - my mind is so different from other minds. I think my mind is normal, but I am sure they think they are the normal ones: I am the weirdo; the obsessive, nit-picking control freak who can’t resist checking his mail box every day. I mean I should just relax, right? Once a month - no wait, once every three months - that’s cool! Well, it isn’t me. And if I was trying to sell them on emptying their mail box, I would be useless at it, because I don’t understand how they think. How To Understand The Mind Of Your Student [NOTE: This second half of my blog is a paid area describing practical ways to implement what has been described above in a Facebook group with 47 other teachers and students. You can join anytime to be part of their discussions.] The people who don’t take your lessons: they don’t think like you either.

Consider it this way: how well can you convince your friend to do something? This is an exercise in marketing and selling, although you may not have categorized it that way before. Marketing and selling is about convincing people about the merits of the action you propose. To do that, you need to know how they think. For me to get my tenants to empty their mailbox, I first need to know why they don’t do that already. What are they thinking? Unless I know that, I can’t address their objections. Do you know why a person objects to buying your lessons? Unless you know that, how can you address their objections? It could be enlightening for all of us, if you list three main reasons why people in your market do not take lessons with you. Obviously “money, time and distance” are three of the top reasons people give, but that is only superficial. Why? Because…. People will pay if they see the value. People will make time if they see the value. People will travel far if they see the value. So the real question is: why don’t they see the value? You know, from your side, that they are wrong. At least you think that way. But they don’t think that way. So the three top reasons why people don’t take lessons, is not what they are thinking, but what they are not thinking. It’s very Alexander: you can’t think what you don’t know, if you keep on thinking what you do know. How can you get them to experience something new? You help them undo what they are thinking, right? But to undo what they are thinking, you first have to discover - just as Alexander did with himself - exactly what it is that they are thinking. A good sales person has a detailed list of all the reasons a person will not buy their service - have you got that list? Share three things that people say to you - deeper than just money, time or distance - that blocks them from doing what you know they would eventually love. Here’s three unexpected reasons that I have discovered: - I will be disloyal to my teacher - I am too shy to learn in a group - I am not smart enough Think about your niche, your avatar, and share at least three inner monologues students have which obstructs them from knowing the value of what you are offering them. Tell us what you have discovered… https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/