Day Three - Your First Group Teaching Is Towards The One Who Hasn't Signed Up (Yet)

I am standing there, looking out on an ocean of people - all wearing orange! It was a Sydney Easter in 1981, and the crowd was gathered for another "celebration" with Bhagwan Rajneesh's band of merry followers. The Orange People, as they were called then, wanted Alexander Technique in their line up of workshops, but it was all gratis: pitch your workshop to the crowd, see who comes. As I stood there I thought: I have a unique marketing opportunity: I better not screw up. Alexander Technique barely had a foothold in Sydney those days - Terry Fitzgerald had arrived two years earlier, and I had just opened a Centre in Milson's Point with Roz Chislet. SATA - a precursor to BodyChance - was starting to make waves and this was a great opportunity to lift our profile further. For youngsters reading this, remember there was no email or web in those days. Netscape - the breakthrough internet browser - was still 14 years away! We sold using flyers, magazines and newspapers, radio and good old fashioned belly-to-belly pitching: whenever and wherever the opportunity arose. So there I was, about to sell SATA (Sydney Alexander Teaching Associates) to a crowd who might love Alexander Technique and support our blossoming Centre. I pitched the normal party line and it was a disaster. Almost no-one signed up. I said things like - we have a natural way of moving and develop all these habits which block them, and Alexander Technique is a way to restore control (I might even have stupidly used that word - to these people!!!) Oh dear. Time for a rethink. The next day I had another opportunity… I sold them on Alexander-is-a-feeling. I uttered things like: "I can't explain this, it's a sensation, an experience. It is beyond words, beyond everyday knowing. You will experience something, it will change your life, and it will be mysterious and wonderful. You'll love it." I had a 400% increase in signs-up and it was my first experience of test niching a message to a group! How You Need To Niche Your Groups To Ensure Wild Success! [NOTE: This second half of my blog is a paid area describing ideas and exercises (to design and market groups) which are explored in a closed Facebook group together with 41 other teachers and students. Join now for less than the cost of one lesson - and get 30 lessons in return this month! Don't miss all the discussions, join now.] To retain your hard won group participants, you need to niche your group, and now I will explain the ins and out of doing that.

Funnel Them Directly Into Groups Angela's experience with her group - she is the mysterious member I mentioned in yesterday's blog - proves that it will be troublesome for you to develop a new teaching "identity" if you try to convert your 121 students into groups. Victoria's and Imogen's elegant posts on the subject demonstrate that you are facing a deep wired mind-set that is not easily shifted. I know, because I struggled for years to re-invent the way I taught so I could make groups work effectively. Here's my credibility builder on this: I studied and taught chair and table style for 10 years. I am saying these things not from some highfalutin intellectual premise, but from my long earned wisdom in the trenches, struggling to apply Marjorie Barstow's brilliant insights into my teaching technology and school. I could write a book about that process, that continued over many, many years as a teaching Director at BodyChance. You're all getting the essence of that process here… Engineer Your Business Towards Groups This is a smart financial decision. It is also a visionary one. When you can communicate these discoveries effectively through groups, you are extending the reach of this wonderful work. That's only good. Therefore, I strongly suggest you open a new "division" in your business that is devoted to filling groups directly, with no reference to your 121 work. Start planning - you are all different. Share in our group: 1.What you have been doing 2.What you could possible do 3.Can't think of three, just love lists of three. You need to niche it. Group workshops are a wonderful way to start testing your niched message. Now I am talking about my 12 Point Plan - so if you are not familiar with that, you need to download and read the e-book I have prepared with all my blog posts on this topic. Go to Chapter Two on Niches to get a leg up on how to prepare your niche. Also look at this post in my 30 Day Challenge to remind your Self of the Avatar exercise. When you have your avatars/niche: what do they want? Create a new group with a niched theme and sell that to them. You can sell it as one evening Introduction, you can sell it as a one day workshop, a series of evenings - this will all depend on the habits and proclivities of your niche/avatar. You need to create a new culture, create a new expectation that will support a new Identity that puts thinking ahead of feeling, that puts enquiry ahead of direct experience. Start your group not with the premise that everyone must have a turn from you each group - throw that idea out totally - but that they have the job of putting up their hand for you. They lead you, not you them. More on that tomorrow. Go share what you are thinking now: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/