DeepThinking - Profit Doesn't Matter, Growth Matters

In 1999 I started my Japanese biz - then named Alexander Technique Associates (ATA) - with a capital base of zero. I was broke. However, I did have 12 eager students all prepared to sign up for my four year program that cost each of them ¥900,000yen annually. So 12 times 900,000yen gave me a projected annual revenue of ¥10,800,000yen which equalled $97,980 in US dollars at the time. Now it is 2014, 15 years later, the income for the current financial year will reach ¥125,549,908yen, or $1,172,740 in US dollars. I recalculated that as a compounded growth rate of 17.77% annually over 15 years. (The crash of 2008 left us withering with "just" 5% annual growth.) What does consistent growth tell me? It tells me I have a great biz, which seems at odds historically with most Alexander Technique businesses. Or is it? There are other businesses in our oddball world that have seen that kind of growth. My closest competitor - we are good friends - is Steven Shaw. His Art of Swimming business is of the same dimensions as my biz, and I guess his company is growing at much the same rate. What is common about a successful AT biz approach? We work with teams of people. Historically, that has rarely happened in our profession, and it is the only way growth can happen. Individuals running schools in their living rooms won't get us there, but hey - I am happy for that too. EyeBody Peter Grunwald has a great business, and Peter knows what I am going to ask him every time we see each other: "When are you going to get serious about training others to do what you do?" My guess is that Peter's growth is stagnant, and that means EyeBody may or may not survive his death. Growth matters. Why does growth matter? Well, Alexander discovery matters, that's why. Growth means a simple human thing - more people are getting the download they need to cooperate with nature's design. The "growth" results from people parting with their money to learn some variation of Alexander's discovery. However growth, evolution, change, development - it takes guts to achieve. It takes courage to move from the known to the unknown. It's scary. As Alexander sagely remarked: "Everyone wants to change, and stay the same while they do it." What marks BodyChance's last 15 years is upheaval, changing cultures, constant revolution. We keep climbing out of the box we built around us. Whatever was right last year, it isn't right this year. Change is the universal constant of living. To grow a company, you need to apply Alexander's Discovery to it's growth. Here's a sobering fact. If BodyChance's growth continues at this rate annually - and that's a big if - then at the end of the next 15 years BodyChance will be a $16.5 million dollar biz. Stay tuned.