Day Eleven – How To Make Money From Groups Part II

Think Different. This was a hugely successful prelaunch campaign instigated by Steve Jobs to put Apple back on the map after years in the wilderness. It also sums up my approach to Group Teaching. This is not about adding another fiddle to your concert performance, this is about re-orchestration of the entire show. As teachers have found in my Facebook coaching group, moving your 121 (one to one) people into groups does not always work out. In some cases, it’s fabulous, but in others “I miss my hands-on” is the refrain. Why is that? Groups Are About Education, 121 Is About Therapy What is Alexander Technique - education or therapy? Think about this: education usually happens in groups (school, university, yoga, aerobics) whereas most therapy happens 121 (visit to the doctor, physiotherapy, chiropractic, craniosacral sessions). When you create a group teaching practise, the unconscious message students are getting is: this is education. Moving to group teaching as your primary source of income is a paradigmal shift in how you are perceived by consumers. It also happens to be a closer fit to what you do. To make an income from group teaching, you are going to need to invest time and resources in seeking out new clients. You invite them into the learning community you are creating. This is not about finding a few catchy workshop titles and hoping someone comes, this is about engineering a new business. Think Different. Building Your System Yesterday, I wrote about the USP of your new learning community - what is the simple benefit you offer than no-one else does? It’s no easy task to come up with this - I’ve already written extensively about it - but when you do you will be able build your learning community. Of course, it isn’t all about a one line USP - that’s the tip of the iceberg you created. You are re-engineering your Alexander Technique service so that it attracts, delivers and retains the student you have already decided you want. You need a entire new system. [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 46 other teachers and students. You can join anytime to be part of the discussions.]

The system you want is a logical learning sequence for your students. This is where the true advantages of niching become apparent in your teaching technology. It is almost impossible to create a graduated learning system based on Alexander Technique alone. As Buzz Gummere once expressed it, Alexander's discovery is unfathomably empty. You can’t sell primary control - until they have experienced it, no-one gets it. But you can get them to experience it, long distance! How? By relating it to an activity that your student is already expert in. This is the truly wonderful aspect of this approach for Alexander Technique teachers. A student with a highly developed sensitivity to a learned activity - because they have been practising it for so long - is able to detect subtle of changes based on the experiment you give them. Musicians can tell immediately if your suggestions helped them or not - using a vast array of sensory feedback systems that they already have in place. (fingering flexibility, rhythm and tone, pitch, ease of breath, thought process, remembrance, presence etc.) So “going verbal” as I put it, means learning to talk the walk: showing them how to incorporate the primacy of head/spinal integration into what they do. It will work long distance - if it doesn’t, how do imagine it will miraculously change to work in your groups? This “going verbal” step not an option, this step is part of the switch you are making to being a teacher of groups. Here’s the really good news… Finally, You Can Offer Steps! Say Julie, Dana and all the other dance related teachers in our group are putting together a group learning program for movers. I have no idea of the full list, but I do know that dancers have a list of grievances, challenges and needs that are fairly universal. Each one of those is a session in your group that maybe occupies 20% of the lesson. Each one of those is an email, blog or essay for your content marketing reach. Adding on to your universal list is another list of activity-specific needs for tango, ballet, modern dance etc. The further you can niche into their dance, the more appealing you become to them. Eventually you can mount different content marketing programs for different kinds of dancers in your overall niche - but they still all come to the same class. It won’t matter - they will quickly see how valuable it is to learn by watching another kind of dancer working with Alexander's discovery in your group setting. It improves their ability to perceive the universal value they are getting. OMG - the synergy, power and pull of a group of dancers all exploring through activities the areas where they strongly desire development, who then discover they are getting it… Gosh, they will pay premium fees for that! You just have to get them in the room. How Do I Get Students In My Groups? You will now start working on a content marketing plan that basically tells them everything you will teach. Everything. Secretly, this is also how you plan your group content! By having to pre-explain your “system” you must develop a graduated learning path that leads them into greater refinements and ability within their desired activity. Those of you feeling left behind because you don’t have an activity - nonsense. You have an activity. You have lots of them. You need to choose for this exercise. I am building up the ground for you to design both a content marketing and teaching program - as I promised when I first advertised this workshop. (Which isn’t really a workshop - it’s a process that never ends!) So get with the game, choose your activity, and tomorrow you start building it’s components. Do some of you want to form little groups to work on this together? For example - how about all the dancers in our group? Or the musicians? Or the “lost soul” keepers? Make a note below and consider pooling your resources to create a program that you can market collectively in your different regions. There’s marketing power in teaming up together. It’s also time-costly and you may work better on your own. Consider it, don’t just jump. If you are interested, post something in our Facebook group at this link... https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/