This Week in ATSuccess

A lot of intensive activity in our Facebook group this week as members grapple with creating their first Facebook campaign. This is a bit like my 30 Day Challenge exercise last year, but this time around with a clearer focus on building on specific event. It's not too late to throw your hat into the ring and join us if you want get energized into creating more work? Support is available for less than the price of a monthly Alexander lesson. Click here now and join us all. *** On Writing A Sales Letter Telling people what you do comes much later in your sales letter, as you explore their problem. A good sales letter is educational, offering great information that intrigues the reader and draws them in. BUT, the information needs to work off the problem they already perceive they have. You will lose students if you start right off the top telling them they are wrong; that they don't know their real problem! Really? How do you like being told that? There are more effective ways to communicate. You begin your sales letter with their internal monologue, not your ideas. How are they thinking? What is worrying them? Get into their headset, give them empathy, identify their frustrations, agitate those frustrations, dismantle every method they have previously used to try to solve their problem, then you can start giving your original solutions, then start to show your hand. At that point, they are ready to listen, hungry even for your new slant. Writing sales letters is a great art. But a learnable one. And essential for anyone doing their own business. You don't get out of needing to learn this. How To Improve A USP (Unique Selling Point) A few comments on your USP: it's multi niched to many different types of people. Is there something they ALL want? I'd stick with that, or separate your pitch to different pages for the various age groups and/or skill sets of different players. e.g. If I am a beginner, I want a page all for me. I want to know how you will help me overcome my belief that... (fill the gap). The experienced player needs to receive a different message - right? Also, whenever you claim anything, give the proof immediately i.e. this sentence: "...which has been endorsed by some of the world’s leading players." Who endorsed you? Tell me. I will trust you more if you do that… On Finding A USP Dan Kennedy wrote that to find a compelling USP, you need to be able to convincingly answer this student's question:

Why should I choose your service versus any other competitive option available to me?

USP is an evolving thing. Cavett Robert wrote:

Don’t be in too much of a hurry to promote until you get good. Otherwise, you just speed up the rate at which the world finds out you’re no good.

To everyone asking whether if their quoted USP is effective - find out how your clients react to it! My opinion does not matter. Ask them. Find a student, tell them your USP idea, and ask if that would have convinced them to read more about your service? You know better than I what those people in your niche want. On Joining ATSuccess Yes - you've done a good job with the multi-niche website, but to accelerate your practise and go places, you definitely need to build an alternative site (keep this one) that speaks to a certain person very clearly. Who that is, what you say and how you put it all together is what you can accomplish here. And the advice about second person speaking is an essential part of connecting to your niche. Remember to download my book at this link. On Building A Yoga Niche It's so gratifying to see the niche approach starting to take hold in a real life situation. Funny how you talk about creating a teacher training - that is exactly the endgame we are reaching for in Japan. I have employed Michiko to come on to the staff of BodyChance to get the Yoga niche up and running. Basil opened our first ProCourse niched school for classical musicians (mostly) last year, now we are aiming to open another for the Yoga lot. It's a two~four year time frame, but every journey begins with a step. On The Effectiveness of An Email Optin It's not my opinion that matters - it's how well it converts in its current form. Are you able to collect data on that? Once you can, then alternate two versions each week, and note the number of people who join divided by the number of unique visits to the page (not counting the robots.) Wordpress will give you that data easily enough. 1-3% is considered an industry average, but someone with marketing savvy, working in a niche, may get up to 40% or higher. That's extraordinary. Here's an example of another header: "Need to play better? Learn to be still." What you have looks good, but marketing is about testing, testing, testing. And my job is to be presenting you with the next step… Sorry to keep moving the goalposts, but that's what coaching is all about. You're doing great! On Subscribing to Multiple Email Lists It's easy to be distracted by too many marketing opinion, and each person's marketing message may contradict another's. One at a time, I decided, or two at the most. So I unsubscribed to all my email lists and followed just three that I now receive regularly. And of those, I only read one most faithfully, the other two on the lookout for interesting stuff. Do it like that, or will be into overwhelm and read none of it. On Online Email Software to Manage Autoresponders I was reading that these people - https://www.icontact.com - offer a simple software for people to use when just starting out with auto-responders: you know - sending out emails automatically when people sign up. I know some of you already have something, but it might be useful for the technically challenged here who don't. Please get on it. Only about 10% of marketers bother with step emails (the lovely name Japanese call them) but for Alexander Technique teachers wanting to develop connection as a way of leading people to lessons, they are an essential communication tool. You start your lessons there, not in your teaching room. Get it? Tips On Building Communities If you want to follow that (http://lkrsocialmedia.com) go check out these people too: http://www.feverbee.com. They feel more solid than sweet looking Laura. But who knows? On Using Yelp About Yelp I know nothing. It doesn't exist for me in Japan. Sorry. But if that is proving to be a source of students - that speaks for itself. Do a cost analysis and figure out when and how useful it can be in getting students, and what quality of students come. Are any/many stayers? Critique of A Workshop Flyer - Part One Your poster puts across a general feeling of fun - but I still don't know what the specific message is? There are too many elements competing against each other. What am I supposed to know from looking at this? What is the outcome you want people to get? The message needs to jump out, so even a 6th grader can tell what it's about. Personal Facebook Group Messages [NOTE: The remaining posts contain personal or specific information that I feel is inappropriate for public scrutiny. You can join the group by becoming a member. One aspect of our Facebook group is that participants expect the protection to express things they would not risk sharing publically. Privacy and trust create the conditions to take necessary risks.]

*Critique of A Workshop Flyer - Part Two Angela - from the blurb you posted: are all these different types of professionals going to join the one workshop with you? Then you need to talk to them as one, rather than separate them all. Is their a way to refer to them all with one name? Then, find the ONE THING they all want, and tell them you will deliver that. If you want to break them out into the various professions, then it is confusing selling to different groups within one flyer. Is there any way you can create separate flyers for each group? I think this is better to talk about in our next Skype - I need more background to understand the context... *On This Week's Two Success Stories I think it is worth noting that the two success stories that have been posted to ATSuccess this week - from Jann and Cecile - arise out of two of the most powerful niches for Alexander Technique: Musicians and Yoga. The former has been a trusted niche for a long time, but the latter is completely open. There is vast wealth available to the teachers who know how to capture this niche: the wealth of creation, social change, transformation and yes, money too. A healthy niche is one that can sustain a back end business. A must for all of you - please remember that. It's your retirement plan. *On Linking A Mooji Video To A Great Blog Finally caught up with this Angela - at 1.30am - and your wrote a wonderful blog: authentically expressed, and effortlessly weaving a clear call to action. I only wonder at the appropriateness for your niche of linking to the Mooji guru video... Will that resonate in your niche? It's more of a back-end sharing, what they discover as they deepen their relationship and trust. Another way to approach this: how were you thinking before you got into the AT thing? Were you ready for Mooji then? *On Building A Team Aniko - pull the UK dentist guy into our group. I will throw in a month's free membership if you can get him to take the bate. The USA guy too for that matter. Interesting. We are moving in a new direction here... *On Charging More Stay you Cecile while you make your offer - be ready for him to say no, and move on. Money never flows to need, just as love never flows to need, remember that. We had a whole period about this awhile back in the group - not sure you were here then? *On Writing a USP You're getting there Cecile! What you wrote is copy for the fleshing out of your USP headline - include all of that in your sales page that you are writing as part of to-day's task. Keep it simple and clear: "Learn to find that sweet balance spot on demand." is enough, the second part you wrote is like another USP/headline. Find out what irritates most Yoga people, what gives them pain - your USP counters that, offers a solution for that. *On A Good USP The best and clearest USP I have read so far from you Cecile is along the lines of "Prevent Yoga Injuries" with maybe a second line on how. But is that a concern they have? I don't know. But at least the benefit is totally clear! A USP is not ambiguous in what it will deliver. *On A Simpler USP Yes Constance - benefits are clear in your USP statement, but it doesn't jump out at you yet. The best USPs tend to be short pithy sentences. Can you mold it all into that? *On Being A Successful Leader Thank you for your thanks - I need a lot of that at the moment. BCLA really knocked me about. We are not islands. I am reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers at the moment, and it's a point he makes over and over. The so-called "individual" leader is not that at all - the support mechanisms around that leader are essential, indeed part of the leadership. It's not about one person, it's about a synergy of people working towards something together. That's what I love about this group - I do not feel alone at all. Thank you all. *On An Alexander Road Trip Yes Lucy - your images of spontaneous workshops on the beach sounds fabulous. Reminds me of the days in Sydney (before Internet or email) when I used to do Alexander "busking" on the streets, handing out flyers and having a lot of fun meeting new people. Have always fantasied doing a souped up streaming media version of my busking for 2014: Jeremy on the streets for a month, living off his AT wits, all streamed live 7/24. Maybe I will one day. : ) Anything to add? A new thread? https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/