M03.07 This Place Is Booked Out

In Mejiro, near our old Tokyo studio, there was a Chinese restaurant that office workers would spend half their lunch-time queuing, then be forced to sit at a tiny tables with strangers, eat quickly and be hustled out for the next sitting. Why would you want to eat there? But people did. There was always a line. A long line! I never ate there, but I can't imagine any food being that good and that cheap that I would put my Self through that experience. However, people in a queue telegraph something – this is a successful restaurant. In fact, there are night clubs that will hire people to queue outside because it increases business. Brant commented yesterday on Eileen Troberman's waiting room – which suggested to him that she was busy enough to merit having a waiting room. That is a simple and elegant example of the points I am making about thinking carefully how you design your Studio/teaching place… Of course you don't want to hire people to sit in your waiting room – that's plain silly – but you do want to pique the curiosity of your prospective students. A simple tip – set your Introductory classes as a limited entry class, and make the number lower than the number that usually come. Then post "Waiting List" or "Full" next to each date, and leave them showing on your website for a month or two after the event. Just seeing that previous Introductions were "sold out" encourages people to act. Another tip is to find ways to interest them in your Place, make it appealing… What do you leave there for them to read? You could have a whole ongoing "lesson" happening there that is interesting enough for some students turn up early so they can "catch up" on the next instalment. Maybe you have a TV screening AT lessons, or interesting shows for your niche? Tell them this is what you are doing. Make the lure of your place such that they start to feel interested and curious about this Place… How easy is it to invite a person to dinner when they are interested? How hard is it to invite a person to dinner when they are not interested? There you have it. In Alexander Technique you want to be have a "lifetime nurturing" relationship as your business goal. Therefore, your first priority is to establish a respectful relationship and let them know you have a (safe/fun/serious/ focused/maverick/whatever) Place for them to be. That's hard to do when you are multi-niching. For example, I recently wrote 2,500 words for people who are desperate, who are looking for some kind of solution from pain. I gave it to some friends to read and critique, and the comments that came back claimed I was being unethical, condescending and telling lies. Oh dear. Those readers were definitely not my niche – instead of giving them reassurance, I was counterproductively alienating and embarrassing them. Not a good outcome, but when you try to multi-niche, this is what happens. I am still figuring out how to deal with this. For now, the home page of BCLA will offer several "invitations" designed attract people who are keen to hear that message, and to put off people who don't want to be spoken to that way. Tricky. Frankly we need multiple websites, but I still think I need to craft a universal BodyChance image without going vanilla on my audience. The point is – it is all so much simpler and clear when you have one niche that you are passionately focused on for life. Most of you are still looking, but when you find it you will know, and it only gets better from there. Never give up.