Christmas and New Year in ATSuccess

This month I have started a workshop on how to use Facebook to gather students. You can join my online workshop anytime, but start now so you get full benefit of sharing with the teachers and students in the hidden group in Facebook. As I usually do, below are some of the messages I communicated to group members within FaceBook over Xmas and New Year. More personally directed comments are locked away for members only to respect their privacy. Some deep stuff is happening in there. Why not jump in today? Pay $48, less than most Alexander Technique lessons, and start finding ways to gather more students into you practice (and quickly earn back your $48 investment). You can join at this link. On Why ATSuccess Works As A Facebook Group What goes on in the hidden ATSuccess group resembles nothing currently in the AT FaceBook menu, nor could it ever. The depth, intimacy and safety that a group of committed participants can create around a common purpose is a powerful thing, and the investment to make it work is an integral aspect of it's practical functionality. The structure of payment is part of what makes it powerful, it's part of my experiment, it's the catalyst to make real difference for folks. On Facebook Lots of guidance on FaceBook coming in January! Don't get too stuck on needing attract people locally, better to be national and test your service offering. It will take time remember, so steadily as she goes... On Building A Unique Niche When you look at Byron Katie, you look at a person who has spent almost 30 years building her niche. For a long, long time there were no crowds. Instead she had little workshops with a dozen people held in someone's living room. Katie carved out her own unique niche through the power of her originality - she is her niche, the Byron Katie niche. Broadly speaking - Eckhart, Robbins and others of this ilk are in a huge horizontal market of human potentiality. Within that market, they have carved their own niche: defined by who they are and what they offer. They built their own niche in the same way you as an Alexander Technique teacher can build your niche over a long period of time. It's possible, however Katie was not an overnight success! Go for it, just expect it to take time, and be incredibly consistent. People like Katie never waiver from their mission - this is a key aspect to their ultimate ability to attract others to listen. Be a voice long enough - with a simple message that resonates with people - and your audience will build. Meanwhile, get lodgers to cover your mortgage! :-) On Who, not What OK - you're going to hate my question - Who's the audience? At least avatar wise if not niche wise. Focus on the Who, not the What-I-Will-Say but Who-I-Am-Speaking-To. Maybe the "who" is not clear to you yet, but continue to ask. On Posting Your Blog… Remember to: 1. Post your blog to FaceBook; 2. Join Yoga FaceBook groups based in America and start sharing relevant excerpts from your blog with a link to the full version; 3. Reading other Yoga blogs and leaving intelligent and startling responses; while you 4. Find other blogs that you could "guest blog" for building traffic to your blog; and 5. WHERE IS THE SIGN UP FOR YOUR LIST? That’s what a blog is for - to build your list. That’s 304 people now who came, left and you don’t know if they will ever come back again… For SURE you lost 3 sign-ups that day because you didn’t have a great offer to encourage them to sign up. On Surrendering To A Niche Oh at last! I can promise you one thing: rather than it being the narrowing you resisted, it will become the opening you long for. Of that I am sure. Things will start to blossom and grow that you could not have imagined before making this decision. Mark my words - you will look back and see that it is true. In fact, as you write above, it is already happening. On Getting Feedback It's truly satisfying to connect with people and know that you are making a difference for them. This motivates blog writing most of all! On What to Write First Communication is like eating - whatever we read (eat) first gets digested most fully. Go back to your "About You" section and ask: "What is the take-away idea I want people to digest?" On Responses To A Survey About Attending An AT Course Two things that jump out at me across the questions: 1. The important of PLACE (Point 3 of my 12 Point plan! Comes directly after NICHE). So many people mention that as a critical component of their decision; 2. The power of testimonials. Many people wrote that evidence of other people gaining from studying would be an essential factor in motivating them to join the program too. Go get those testimonials NOW!!! BCLA, Money and Other Things These comments are more personally orientated advice for the members of ATSuccess who participate in our secret Facebook book. [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.]

*On Writing A Blog Cecile - I wrote a blog on blogs. Have you read that? I tried to find it just now and couldn't, sorry. Anyone else remember it? I read your most recent blog, and you are following much of the detailed advice I gave you previously. Great. Review what I wrote again - it’s generic and can keep helping you. Talking more directly to the reader is good, now stick to ONE IDEA you want to communicate in you blog post. Make a sentence of it before you write, then keep checking "Does this go towards making my one simple point or not?" and if it doesn't, leave it out. If you want blog-by-blog writing assistance, you'd better move from being a Basic to Pro level member of this group. 10 sign ups already? Amazing. More than 500 views per blog? INCREDIBLE! Go girl - you could really lift off with this. *On How To Track A Blog Being Annie seems right to me! We have talked before about the "personality" niche useful in a small town. Keep us abreast... Karen is working on the same strategy. Popularity is not exclusively gauged by how many comments on the blog - I also get very few - check out how many people are viewing your blog. Is that tracking up, down or flat? Know that before deciding the blog is not functioning for you... *On Jeremy’s 2013 Retrospective My heart is deeply warmed by all your generous comments - thank you! Yes it's hard, and now you know what I was going through in my dark period earlier in December before I decided to pull the plug. Absolutely Adrian I know what you mean. Ego would have me still pushing a falling rock uphill, but the "kept me awake at night" test is an important one, and it told me "End it." So I did. This part was my retrospective, but next comes the forward planning… *On Why BCLA Closed I obviously believed BCLA would succeed - but it was impossible for me to be there every day as I do not have the right to do that, and the United States Government wasn't jumping up and down in it's enthusiasm to give me that right. So I employed a full-time manager, but maybe I needed to hire me first? I thought I had learnt enough a la Paul Hawken style - in the 7 years I built BodyChance Japan - to be the guide, not the instigator. I thought I could side step the 4 year "slow grow" and move directly into a higher gear. I was wrong. *On The Ending of BCLA Oh Victoria I don't blame hostile teachers, but it didn't help. Fear is the reason for this hostility, mixed with sincere belief. We are all doing what we believe is right. I love that Dana - flow where the water will go. It keeps flowing back into Japan, so my destiny is still inextricably entwined with Japanese. As much as my Japanese friends are disappointed with BCLA's closure, a sigh of relief is coursing through the community. Yes Brant, in 2014 my next challenge is around how to build a community without the initial support of a studio complex. I am still aiming for London 2016, so don't think for a minute that I have given up. We rise, we fall - now you all have permission to fail in ATSuccess, just like me. My heart is deeply warmed by all your generous comments - thank you! Yes it's hard, and now you know what I was going through in the darker period I had before making the decision to end BCLA. Absolutely Adrian I know what you mean. Ego would have me still pushing a falling rock uphill, but the "kept awake at night" test is an important one, and it told me "Can it." So I did. This part was the retrospective, but next comes the forward planning. Read today's blog! Thank you Constance - I have gone through a complete grief process about this, it started before I went public about it. It wasn't timing, it was the lack of a niche. How odd that I could not learn from my own teaching. I feel like an Alexander Technique teacher with a crook back! I guess nothing replaces the experience of a thing. Now my love and self-regard is back - I know I did my best, I know I can learn, I know it is not over. *On How Who You Can Be As I read that Dana, I sense you are coming to "your work" and ready to declare your Self. There is guilt associated in becoming "a new thing" as though you invented it all on your own, but that is never true. Anyway, I totally agree that the first step is the hardest, as the AA people say: "Just don't have the first drink, that's all" we could say: "Just take the first step, that's all." I hope your meditations on the future will bring much fruit for you.... Feedback and further comments here… https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/