Clarity is Power • ATSuccess Week 2 - March 2014

Here's a sentence worthy of Alexander longest and most circuitous: As the newly named Invitation Letters into the niched work of each teacher took shape, following an immensely detailed psychological tapestry built over decades of experience creating these things, word starting coming back from students and contacts of many of the teachers participating in this process, that demonstrated the inert power available from participating. Here's a better way of putting all that: Clarity is Power. Writing your own Invitation Letter is how clarity gets created. Ask Apple. Simple is not so simple to create, and the clarity follows that pattern: it's a circuitous route. However, it's available for you to create when you are ready to start your journey... Join ATSuccess, and start getting clear: Click here now to find out more. *** On How To Deal With Being A Sensitive Person One result from my years of crying since my separation - and continuing today - was understanding that at the heart of my sensitivity to the loss of others (their presence, their love, their opinion, their praise) was my own self-hate. I was shocked to discover this, and I still don't always connect, but when I love my Self, none of the symptoms this woman explores in her blog occur in me. It isn't true all the time, so when I notice I am back into being "sensitive" again - I know it's time for another big cry. Crying is the way I found back to my heart, back to the love of me. Not as ego, but compassionately so: forgiving me for not being everything my ego is demanding me to be. I know that when I love me, I can love you - even when you don't feel the same. On How To React When Your Pupil Praises You I no longer get excited when people praise my work, because I know soon enough some one will attack it. Just yesterday in fact. I also love rejoicing, but when my rejoicing was based on another person's opinion my work, rather than my own opinion of me, it left me vulnerable to the opposite opinion, and I kept finding myself in a dark space. I still do, but now it's about other things, like missing my kids. On Being Underpriced - NOT. When they ask you to work for too little, be as creative as you can in your response to them. There are a hundred ways to say no - is there an upside you can leverage out of them for a reduced fee? For example: tell them you will only do this deducted price one time only, and if you rate **** or more from feedback systems they are free to implement, your price henceforth is xxxx Euros. Or you say: I will reduce the price if you send out an email to all your members where I will invite them to join my email seminar on taking care of back business (thereby circumnavigating the need to go through them in the future). I may not have a full grasp of your situation, but getting your foot in the door - CONDITIONALLY - is more important that huffing about price. Keep your integrity by all means, but be creative in seeing what "value" is all about. For you. What is A USP Again? Again, "compassionate attention" feels more like a how, not a what i.e. more a feature, not a benefit. If you have to ask, then it probably isn't a USP. A USP needs to be obvious. i.e. Fresh hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less guaranteed. Nothing to wonder about there. On Creating An Irresistible CTA Work on your CTA (Call To Action) next. Make an irresistible, impossible-to-refuse offer that no-one who is part of your niche could in their right mind ignore. It's another project, another series of blogs, but one that needs to be on the horizon soon. On Losing Time by Sleeping Oh I wish I slept less. I heard of one guy who trained himself to sleep only 4 hours per night, based on going in and out of two REM which (apparently) is all we need for a good night's sleep. On Pioneering A New Biz Idea When there's a "lack of role models" in regards to any new business idea, you have to ask why? Pioneering biz ideas are the stuff of legends, but for every idea that worked, Lord knows how many hit the dust. It's an exponentially more difficult task - Alexander Technique being a prime example - so I'd recommend that you think carefully before committing too many of your precious time and monetary resources on an unproven idea. Where's the evidence that it will work, other than your own opinion? On Someone Stealing Your Work Love that you are all worrying about being poached - it shows your serious intent. I used to think: why doesn't everyone do ... (fill the gap) ... since it is so obvious, but I have come to see that they just don't. It's good to have competition actually, it's an antidote to sleep. Someone will and should copy something you've done, but like any mimic they have no sense of the holistic origin of the "piece" that they copy, so it doesn't work for them. The UPS/Sales Letter is just ONE STEP of 12 that need to fit together to make an AT biz work - remember that. And relax. No sense worrying about what you can not control. My Personal Facebook Group [NOTE: The second half of to-day's blog contains posts from my ATSuccess Group in Facebook. They contain personal or specific information that is inappropriate for public consumption. You can join the group by becoming a member. Participants of enjoy privacy protection to express opinions openly. It gets interesting. Trusting each other creates a context to take risks. In ATSuccess no-one cares where you trained, they only care you succeed.]

*How I Organize ATSuccess As there are many people currently posting the fruits of the SL process, I wanted to clarify my method of responding to that. I don't do praise so much as "What's next?" because I am guessing that is what you really want? I sometimes wonder if you (being ATSuccess members) think I am being negligent in appearing to fail to acknowledge the tremendous work that went into the final result, since I basically launch directly into the critique: "now do this and that and change this, and delete that" rave. I could of course start out with a "congratulations on this, that and the other" rave. I guess hearing what is good is good to know, but given my time constraints, I choose just to go with the second half, and assume you know you are already good about the bits I don't mention. It doesn't mean they are perfect - if you want a really deep assessment from me the Pro level is available - it just means I've picked the most critical points that I can grasp at the time. I give about two hours a day to ATSuccess, and that is already pushing the boundaries of what I have to give. Hope you can appreciate what I am wanting to communicate. Boiled down to its essence what I am saying is: Love your Self, don't give me that job. *On The Different Of A Feature And A Benefit And Dana - Dancing from the Inside Out - is not a USP, it's about how you plan to teach, which makes it a feature, not a benefit. USP is about benefit, not feature. Jennifer's new USP "No more suffering musicians" tells you exactly what the benefit will be, but not how she will do it. Yours tells you how you will do it, but not what the benefit will be. *On Leaving Price Out of Your Sales Letter Hey Jennifer - well done. Lots of thought and hitting all the right buttons. It was a scan this morning, but I could find no price? My guess is that you are leaving out price as a strategy, so I assume you're following advice of your other program? It's scary when there's no price mentioned, but I guess you are using that as a qualifier? i.e. you actively want to exclude people who might feel suspicious that you don't mention price, and decide not to pursue it further because of that. The application also creates a barrier to signing up - but I followed the same strategy when I set up ATSuccess. (REMEMBER - the 12 step plan? Over 240 people did it!) *On Who To Listen To About the Effectiveness of Your USP 50 people trump me! As you know, whenever I am asked "Jeremy, what do you think of this USP?" I have in the past obsessively repeated: "My opinion doesn't matter. The only opinion that matters is your prospective clients." I decided that was not as helpful to you all as I would like it to be, so I consciously decided to start commenting more on USP ideas. BUT - for exactly the reasons you mention above - PEOPLE SHOULD NOT LISTEN TOO STRONGLY. My opinion is just that, my opinion. I am not buying your service product. How do the people who are buying react? They like it, you say, so good. Use "freedom" in your USP! *On What An Invitation Letter (aka Sales Letter) Can Get For You Great feedback to get Cecile - good on you for putting in the effort. It's not about the IL, it's about moving towards inner clarity on what you do, and who you do it for. Every time you talk with people now, you are reaping the benefits of that research, time and deep thought you put into creating your IL. You could tear it up and throw it away - and still it would be impossible to lose the benefits it is now giving you. *On A Major Music Study in Australia Yep - Dr. Bronwen Ackermann - she's the Physio I gave a lesson to. Very ready to find what's wrong about Alexander Technique, but I didn't give her an opportunity to pursue that path. Instead, she discovered something. I almost wanted to say sorry. (Just joking) http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=12437 *On Constance's Sales Letter Switch the two opening paragraphs. Get a headline that is a sentence that speaks to me. See my comment about "Dancing from the Inside Out" under yesterday's blog post (March 3); Put your personal story higher, and tell us more - get your teaching points across from within the drama of your own story; it can be way longer. For a person hungry to know more - this is just the starter. Have you got a meal-sized version? If you put this on a website, can you add a "Read more..." link? *On Telling People What You Charge, Or Not Yes, you've done a sterling job. You know that too - my opinion doesn't matter, my advice could. Of course giving a paragraph by paragraph critique is beyond my brief, but for the issue of your fee, I think you need to say SOMETHING that gives them an understanding of why it is not there (If price is really your top concern, we are probably not a match). Disqualifying people can be a powerful way of attracting others, so I think you need to have SOME conversation in there, if not an actual figure. I think it's fine not to have a figure, however not saying anything about cost leaves people too much to their own imaginations. Price is a BIG THING for you, so why wouldn't it be for them? *On Getting ill Thanks for sharing that Jennifer - I have been working with Michiko on a IL and she just came done with a migraine. It's kinda normal really. It feels like you are going through a massive brain rewiring, a purification and a transformative experience all at once. Never give up, as I am sure you won't. *On The Ebb And Flow of Life Sounds right Dana - mostly our life does itself, and we live under the illusion that we have something to do with that. Still not sure about that one, but enjoyed writing it. *On Being Fair To The One You Hate Ooops - I deleted this post because it came out of my story. I had a story "Brett is mean" and I posted the reason I felt that. Then I did the work and what I found was true was that "Jeremy is mean" Yes - for posting something that would change all your opinions of Brett. I wrote "Brett should stop blaming me for his misfortune" but instead I realized that I should stop blaming Brett for my misfortune. I wrote "Brett should stop being such a shit and learn how to be generous" and by now I am guessing you realise how that THAT ONE worked out? Yes, I am being mean-spirited when I don't see that Brett was left massively hurt by his BCLA experience, and is coping in the only way he knows how. Please think kindly towards him. He is only doing what he feels he must do to protect his family, save his reputation and try to move on in a clean, clear way. I wish him only the best. BTW - I will probably delete this entire post (or the paid part anyway) so if you didn't get to read it yet, you'd better do so quickly. My job is not to misalign Brett, it is to look after me. Didn't I just say that before? Boy, it's so quick to get into hypocrisy. Amazing. *** Anything to add? A new thread? https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/