The One Thing Your Website Needs To Do That Most Alexander Technique Websites Fail At: 15th Letter to BodyChance Students

This is the 15th letter to my students in BodyChance in Japan: helping them to think in a way now that will ensure they build Alexander Technique careers that will nurture them in the future…

SUBJECT: The One Thing Your Website Needs To Do That Most Alexander Technique Websites Fail At.

Dear Seito-san,

Alexander has a fabulous story – do you?

I was scouting around Alexander Technique websites recently, and I came across one teacher who is telling his story. Go to his top page and first thing you see is…

not about Alexander Technique (no-one really cares anyway)

not about Alexander himself (thank heavens!)

nothing about his studio or lessons (they’ll ask when they need it)

Instead, what first hits you is about:

•   Your back problem – credible medical authority says “It can be fixed.”

•   Teacher's back problem – empathetic person ready to help you out.

That is the kind of simple, elegant message for the person surfing the web late at night: back still hurting after a hard day at work, desperate, hoping against hope to find a solution…

Niching talks best when it talks specifically. You might brush past that website, because you are looking for something to help stage fright. Ok – we build another website for you. What we don’t do, is try to make our website meet both needs at the same time!

People distrust this. Example: say you want to eat Thai food tonight. You head to the town and find two restaurants: one restaurant promises to give you Indian, Malaysian or Thai food. Next to it is another very Thai looking place that offers only Thai food. Which one do you pick?

Another example: how many of you have two girlfriends or two boyfriends, or one of each? How is that working out?

Human beings are biologically geared to look for simplest way to meet their needs, and discard the rest. The simplest way is to let an expert do their thinking for them, and the expert is anyone who empathetic to their problem. They confer great authority to you when you connect to them by showing how well you understand their needs. This process will overcome enormous buyer skepticism and resistance – you become part of that person’s gestalt. You get a pass. This is the power of niche marketing.

What is also great about this powerful niched website is that the teacher – Ed Fischer – has a story to tell. Most Alexander Technique websites tell Alexander’s story. They got it half right: people do want to read a story, but tell YOUR story, not Alexander’s. He’s been dead for more than 60 years – how relevant is that to someone today? A guy doing recitals in Australia? Oh really! As my daughter would say: “Hallo?”

This site has more work to do: it still shows the “What is AT” and “Who Was Alexander?” but I’d say – not yet. People want credibility, not background. This detailed information confuses people: it’s too much, too early. You’ll frighten them away!

No, instead of “What is AT” you can have “What People Have Said” and then pile on the testimonials – starting with Paul Newman’s great endorsement for his back pain, and then lots of your own students telling THEIR story.

People LOVE stories, so fill your website with them. People want to know about themselves, they want to read about them – vicariously of course – so when they read your story, they project themselves into it. You are making a powerful, potentially long lasting connection with a new client. So what do you want them to do?

Join your email list. You don’t have an email list? As my youngest daughter loves to text: OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trainees need to be building their list now, not when they quality. Every Alexander Technique teacher should already have one. It is a basic, business sense: your list is your primary business asset. More on that in my next letter.

Make it your website’s job to have people join your list, and do it by connecting with them so humanly, so authentically, that they are almost compulsed to join your list.

cheerfully

Jeremy

PS Please join my circle of friends on FaceBook www.facebook.com/chancejeremy where a whole bunch of students and teachers are offering some wonderful insights and ideas stimulated by my blog. See you there!

PPS If you want to look at the website I discussed today, it is at http://www.techniqueforliving.com I’ve never met Ed, although we have exchanged emails.