Have you noticed that parents and students today are harder to convince to commit to something?
If you’ve been in the dance studio industry for any amount of time you may have sensed this shift at your own studio.
The problem, of course, is that it hasn’t become any easier to teach someone how to dance. It still takes time and dedication ON THEIR PART as well as yours.
What has changed? Why are people so afraid to commit? What can we do about it?
Consider this . . .
The marketing landscape is changing today faster than it ever has. That’s a good thing for dance studio owners (really any business owners) for a number of reasons. We have more tools, more data, and more automation available to us than ever before in history. We can get our messaging out to the right audience more easily, quickly, and efficiently.
But it’s been interesting to me to watch the other side of this coin. . . what this is doing to the average consumer. People are being BOMBARDED with advertising. Everywhere they look, everything they listen to is designed in some way to sell them something. Advertising is everywhere.
“We can make excuses and complain, or we can adapt, learn, and implement new strategies that actually work.”
Not only that, but the advertising that’s out there is MORE persuasive than it used to be, AND it’s more highly targeted.
And, what’s their reaction to this overwhelming amount of sales indoctrination?
Of course people put up defense mechanisms.
Of course we’ve all now been trained to be more skeptical.
They’re forced to become more sophisticated.
People have had to adapt to be able to not respond to the amount of marketing that is now OVERWHELMING.
This is the NEW REALITY.
There are a couple of ways we can react to it. We can make excuses and complain, or we can adapt, learn, and implement new strategies that actually work.
The good news is that most people (namely our competitors) will probably not update what they’re doing. Most people don’t keep up to date on what marketing strategies are working today, for example. This creates a great opportunity for those of us that are paying attention.
But, the opposite is true as well. If you don’t stay up to date, you’re going to be left behind. (It doesn’t take a lot, but it does take something.)
Here’s the “take home message.”
People today being more afraid to commit is not a character flaw on their part. It is an appropriate response to the changes in their environment.
But, this shifts the burden of responsibility on to US. We need to be able to demonstrate to people why being committed and dedicated to something healthy (like what we teach) is such a good thing. We need to be capable of demonstrating that value, overcoming their objections, and ultimately making their lives better because of it.
That’s a challenge, but if you’d like to learn more about how EXACTLY to do this I’d love to help.
Over the next week I’ve opened up a few extra times to talk with studios that are interested in aggressively growing their student enrollments and increasing their personal income.
That will really help us to take advantage of our time together. The call is absolutely free, and it will also give us a chance to see if working together in the future makes sense as well.