Another 12 Point Plan, this time from Pro Member Rossella Buono. Rossella has recently moved to Canterbury, Great Britain where she is seeking out ways to establish her identity in this small town. My format below is to publish her 12 Point Plan in full. My comments follow each of the numbered points under the three asterisks that look like this: ***

Bellydancers are a tight knit community in Japan, and one day BodyChance consciously decided to offer our services to them. Being tight knit, word could spread quickly, so we did not have to spend money to create buzz. Brant has asked me to write about how we did this, so here it is…

It was a project that ended with a flourish: 200+ belly dancers packed into a theatre venue - that BodyChance had hired for the night - to watch performers gyrating to a rhythm, while I tried to figure out what the heck was my job here…

Honestly? I made a complete mess of it.

In Japan yesterday I was talking with a teacher inspired by a new idea – a specialist class. I listened enthusiastically to the idea, asked questions, but as we progressed I sensed a disease arising within me, and I wondered what that was about?

Sleazy. That's the word my biz consultant Paul Lemberg offered up this morning when I explained the membership system of this website. He commented: "I know it works, but it doesn't build loyalty."

Then I explained to him why I designed it that way.

"That makes perfect sense to me" Paul concluded. "So tell them. Explain it – it will be much better if they know why you are doing it this way."

Why I Am Doing It This Way

First understand that you are a niche, just like any other niche.

Every month, Kentaro delivers a report on the status of BodyChance's marketing to all the staff at our Operations Meeting on Monday.

I am looking at last month's report, and there is a salient niche lesson that will interest you all. The report tracks the number of new people who visited the studio in May (39) and of those, how many decided to take membership (15) which gives us this month's conversion average (38%). Three years ago, looking at a similar report, our conversion average was 5%.

About 18 months ago, I started getting Friend requests from Japanese people on my FaceBook page. For years I'd been urging people here to get involved, now finally – in their own time – it was happening. Hurray, at last! Up to then they had all been crazy about a thing called Mixi, an anonymously driven FaceBook-type service that was totally inaccessible to my challenged Japanese-language Self.

Deleted at the Request of Karen DeHart

In 2008, at the first Congress in Lugarno, I remember sitting on the grass with Pamela Blanc, wondrously sharing my recent discovery at BodyChance of creating a membership system. In fact, anyone who would listen faced a barrage of excited biz talk from me at that Congress: hastily convened meetings that many an odd passerby decided to join. I didn't care: "Pull over a chair!" I had a story to tell to anyone who would listen… (and I am still at it today!)

This morning on the Pro Members Skype call, "niche" was our topic front and centre.

Some of you know your niche – you've been doing it all your life, and it led you to Alexander Technique. Musicians, performers of all kinds, hobbyists/enthusiasts already have a passion burning within to then leverage as part of an Alexander Technique biz development process. If you fall into that category, there is still a lot of work to be done, but a critical part is done.

What if you don't have such a passion?

What if it is not obvious to you at all what your niche is?