W08.04 How Do I Decide My Front-End / Back-End Business? Part Two

Harvey Goodliffe, a wonderful teacher and friend in London, once told me he had three kinds of pupils: the A-category Pupils: “just fix me and send me home”; the B-category Pupils: “teach me all the mechanics, but leave my personality out of it”; and finally the C-category Pupils: “I’ll try anything!” The C-pupils were the most fun to work with, but he loved them all.

 

The point was: 1. Harney offered them the kind of lesson they wanted; 2. He noticed many of them changed categories as they stayed longer. A-category pupils often ended up as C-category pupils. Does your niche have this same tendency?

 

 

The business models I present today fit more easily with traditional Alexander Technique businesses, even those that are not clearly niched. Are you losing opportunities to increase your income? As you read on, consider how you could re-engineer what you are already doing…

 

 

BUSINESS THREE

 

Frontend: going away from something…

 

Backend: going towards something…

 

 

Your “result” could take many forms – a physical one (eradicating yips in golfers; solving OOS/RSI for office workers; back pain relief for Registered Nurses); an emotional one (resolving stage fright, conflict resolution, grief relief); a spiritual one (deepening self-knowledge, understanding others, increasing serenity).

 

 

You Front-end/Back-end mix could be a play between “going away” from pain, conflict and suffering (Front-end) and “going towards” freedom, love and happiness (Back end). What will your promises be? These are choices that your niche market will decide for you…

 

 

Or your Front-end/Back-end mix may be expressed as deeper reading of the same problem. If you started with a physical promise, you give it an emotional profile: “Back pain is a mental problem”. If you started with mental promise, you give it a physical profile: “Stage fright ceases when you stand this way”

 

 

BUSINESS FOUR

 

Front-end: Regular Alexander Technique (lessons/groups)

 

Back-end: Adventure holidays with You

 

A definition of a Back-end business is that you are selling something to your Front-end clients. This is one reason why a Back-end business is profitable – you increase your average income from students you already have. This Business model will work for Alexander Technique teachers in affluent areas, who have a good following but want to boost their annual income without too much trouble.