When The Suits Start Asking…

"How many weeks in your year?" he asked me. (Huh? What's he talking about?) "Well… 52 of course." "So your biz is open over Christmas and New Year?" "Um. No. We close" "So your year is not 52 weeks is it?" Welcome to my first session on how to run my business. We are sitting at a cramped table in the noisy Sailors Café, just outside Ebisu station in Tokyo. It is 2006. Grace was two, Angelica five. My method of running my biz up to this point had been rushing to the ATM to see if I had any spare cash. It wasn't working real well… Budget? How do you a budget? Here I was learning with Tom, my first professionally paid biz consultant! First, you decide how many weeks in a year you are earning income, that is your definitive number to calculate cash flow. Then you list what everything is going to cost you. Then you add it all up, divide it by your weeks, and that's how much you gotta earn every week to stay in business. Too simple, right? So get started. [NOTE: This second half of my blog is a paid area getting more practical about my general comments above with the other teachers and students in my ATSuccess group. You can join anytime to be part of our discussions.]

I was never good at it. Because I could never predict, I could never guess what I needed do next. What happens in any Alexander Technique biz depends hugely on the talents, proclivities and ability of the people in that biz. When it is just you, you need to know you really well. Why? Because building an Alexander biz is industrial - it takes years of training, planning, focus, long-term strategy and considerable capital to pull off creating the kind of biz that produces a revenue stream appropriate to your skills. It's an amazing achievement, something that eludes 95% of the people who attempt it. The core of your business is manual labour and IP (Intellectual Property) i.e. your skill as a teacher, and your ability to communicate what you do that is unique in your market. Waking up your IP component is part of my 12 Part Biz Plan - it involves niching into a specific human activity that has attracted a community of people, then inserting your Self into that community as a truly revolutionary force. What niche do you choose? It depends on you. Knowing what will inspire, propel and sustain you over a short lifetime (10+ years) determines the niche you choose. BodyChance did not grow through my conscious decision - it grew in response to the talents I was able to attract. Basil showed up one day in Kyoto with his girlfriend Maria, wondering where, when (and even if) he would join my newly created BodyChance school. He was attracted by my Ebisu Café stories and my big biz talk, so he joined. He kept listening and implementing my advice. I offered him a job. Six years later, we are opening our new two story studio in Shinjuku devoted to serving our Music niche. Opportunistic Business Practices Because the core engine of any successful biz is it's service, when it comes to an Alexander biz then the service comprises the state of consciousness of the person at the core of the biz. You. How awake are you? How well are you able to support others waking up to the unnecessary stresses and pain that they self-inflict within their own ignorance of the fact? Without the ability to deliver on that, all the bells and whistles of your marketing and selling machine amount to hot air. You can fake a lot in an Alexander Technique, but you can't fake the touch of your hand. You can't fake delivering on a promise of experiential difference. You deliver or you don't. They stay or they don't. It means we don't always get to choose our niche, our niche often comes to choose us. When it does: Are you ready to commit? Have you considered what it will mean to succeed in your niche? Talk about years, not months, not weeks. Do you even like these people? What I understand now is that I can't predict where BodyChance as a biz will head. I run a biz that is opportunistic - whenever a break appears, I can follow that. Whatever staff I can find, I nurture and lead them to the place they want to go. I lead from behind, not from the front. Whatever skills I have, I utilize those. Whatever passion I hold, I direct those as appropriately befits my nature. My opportunities decide my future, not me. https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/