W09.05 Case Studies: Eileen Troberman in San Diego, USA. Part One

Eileen is a personal friend, a wonderful teacher and one of BodyChance’s visiting teachers. She came to Japan in 2011 for our annual school residential and was a huge hit with the Japanese students - who soon started talking about trekking off to San Diego if Eileen could organise it. Not every visiting teacher gets that request. Rather than spill the beans here, keep reading as I have a little surprise for you - and especially for Eileen - who I will meet up with next week in person. What shall we talk about…

 

 

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Eileen Troberman

 

 

Step 1 – Recognize Success Drivers

 

Hurray! Eileen is the first of my case studies who manages to get the phrase “make more money” in her first sentence! Eileen is a tried and true workhorse of many years, who sees through her ideological sparkle into the practical necessities of making a living from helping others. The clarity is there, what is lacking is a plan. That part is easy – so let’s get to it…

 

 

 

Step 2 – Find Your Niche

 

Eileen is a seasoned, multi-niche teacher with deep experience. Like Marj Barstow, one of her significant mentors, she has experience of teaching everything, just about. However, what she fails to add here – which is significant – is that fully 80% of her clientele are long-term students!

 

 

She writes: “I keep my old students, but don't get that many new students.” So Eileen is entering a financial crunch moment as these students do not supply the money she needs to stay conveniently available for them to visit her.

 

 

My take on this: Eileen is a back-end business waiting to happen.

 

 

Step 3 – Location of Community

 

San Diego is accessible directly by plane from anywhere on the West Coast of USA, that’s a lot of people who could fly down given enough reason to. So how convenient is she from the airport? I will find that out my Self next week when I visit her domicile while in USA for my Katie workshop. Within San Diego - where is the most convenient location? Eileen is currently seeking out new premises, but isn’t sure how to decide.

 

 

Decisions become easy when there’s a clear plan guiding them. Eileen knows that from her teaching, so the first job is not finding a place to move to, it’s generating a vision that dictates a place to move to - is it even San Diego?

 

 

This is where the personal meets the professional, and I am all for the personal trumping the professional. It’s the principle of our work - take care of your Self first, then your business will run better. So business structure reflects your personal preferences, for example “I want to live in San Diego.” or “I am happy to live in any sunny, sea-side location.”