Dan Kennedy, one of the seminal direct marketing figures – and not a very nice man – complained a long time ago about Professional groups of all kinds.

Dan was influential in the Chiropractic world – being one of the key figures orchestrating their extraordinary ascent into almost equal status with the medical Profession in the public’s eyes.

Chiropractic has become a legitimate medial alternative in a personal health crisis.

That’s called building incredible credibility.

A Profession built on the back of marketing. That was Dan.

Dan’s complaint in going to the most Professional Congresses, was that nobody wanted to talk about the clients. They were more interested in their newest technique and theories, of the methodology of their Profession, even its philosophy.

But never practical issues of communication with the client.

Simple things like:

• Who are the people who come to us?
• What other kind of people could we help?
• What is their chief complaint about us?
• What other ways do they want to be helped by us?

How about you?

When you go to the next Congress in Chicago, do you expect these questions to be at the forefront of Congress deliberations? Absolutely they will NOT. You know better than that.

And that’s one reason I won’t be coming to Chicago.

I am more interested in the clients than the practitioners. Sorry.

BodyChance has transformed the awareness of Alexander's discovery in Japan – a country of 120 million people that has a real chance to impact the whole Alexander community over the next decade.

BodyChance got where it is to-day, because I focused on the client questions.

Dan always asked new clients what business they were in. Almost inevitably, they got the answer wrong. They would say “I am in the business of Chiropractic” and Dan would reply:

“You are all in the business of marketing.”

Most people are not going to agree with that; and then they are going to scratch their heads and wonder how I managed to create an Alexander school with 138 trainees.

Are you interested in spreading the work?

Is your current way of thinking leading to increased engagement with students?

I love Alexander's discovery as much as you do, but what I love most is seeing new people discovering it. That’s why my mission is:

1. count in people, not ¥
2. design training methods
3. train BodyChance teachers
4. build markets for BC teachers
5. repeat the model in new locations

Slowly but surely we can build a culture of success in our Profession. And to achieve that, we need to “think different” Here’s how:

Markeaching

This is a new term I invented.

My wish in using this language, is to unify a perceptive disorder – that somehow “teaching” and “marketing” differ fundamentally.

Teaching and Marketing differ, just not fundamentally. Therefore, Markeaching.

Global doesn't like markeaching. Global doesn’t want teachers selling things to other teachers because…

Why?

What’s wrong with seeing how people sell? If we love our work, aren’t we interested in how to do that? And noticing how other people do it? It’s almost like selling is somehow “dirty” and we don’t want to mess up the fertile soil of our Profession with sh*t like that.

Well – our soil needs sh*t to be enriched.

How can the development of a Profession be meaningful by banning any language associated with selling it? I come from school that says:

“Without a student, there is no teacher.”

What separates the marketing and teaching is not the activity of the teacher, it is the presence of the student. Markeaching is the activity of the teacher, changing only by the relationship you have with the student.

In teaching, you know who is there. In marketing, you do not.

Although both times you have the same information to impart - not knowing the identity of the listener imposes a larger burden on the communicator. The wider the net of the expected audience, the tougher it is to prepare a cogent and effective presentation.

That’s why marketing is so focused on, well – the market. The four questions I posed at the outset of this dispatch detail the information you need to acquire first to present a focused and effective presentation to YOUR market. At ATSuccess we call this:

1. Your community
2. Your niche
3. Your avatar

You could be one, and being all three is the holy grail.

I have put together a comprehensive 12 Part plan to build a successful Alexander's discovery practise. It’s not quick. It’s industrial. It will work, if you’re persistent.

What I recommend now is that you sign up an re-read these 12 steps. Everytime you go through, you’ll learn more. Get ideas. Act.

ATSuccess 12 Part Plan.

Picture credit: Pixabay.com