I’ve just seen a post in a ‘local’ Facebook group that was offering a special yoga and relaxation day.
For £50 they were offering a day where you take part in two yoga sessions (one in the morning and one in the afternoon), a silent walk in the woods with quiet meditation, lunch, and a welcome hug session.
OK, so I am going to unpack this because I find it interesting that people are actually paying for two yoga sessions… and to be surrounded by other people while they spend an hour or two having a ‘silent’ walk in the woods followed by sitting in ‘quiet’ meditation… also in the woods.
The lunch is a healthy dhal, which I am told by Andi, our resident dhal muncher, is one of the cheapest dishes you can make. It’s basically a pan of lentils.
The welcome hug and introduction session is nothing more than the group gathering in the morning before starting the first yoga session.
I am not criticising this offer at all, I think it is good that they have convinced people to part with extra money to spend a couple hours in complete silence and to hug strangers.
For £25 they could run two yoga sessions with lunch and that would be a good day, but they have managed to squeeze another £25 out of the customers by walking them into the woods where they will sit in silence without talking.
While the yoga sessions are ‘guided’, there was no mention that the walk or the meditation session would be guided, and so participants could quite easily be walked into the woods in complete silence and then expected to sit in silence.
You could save yourself £25 by hugging a family member when you leave in the morning, and then taking yourself for a long quiet walk in the woods after the yoga sessions.
Sitting in the woods in quiet contemplation costs you nothing.
But here’s the thing…
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People are not necessarily paying to be taken for a walk or to be sat in the woods in silence; they are paying to be with a group of like-minded people… even if they are not talking to them.
Group participation is something a lot of people crave.
And for a lot of people, it’s also a lot easier to ‘do’ something when they have purposely booked and paid for it.
Yes, technically it should be easier to take yourself off for a walk in the woods yourself, but for many people, it is actually easier when it is set to someone else’s timetable.
Don’t ask me why, it doesn’t make any sense, but that is how a lot of people are.
While you read this, you could think to yourself ‘I’ll go for a walk in the woods’ and simply get up and do it.
There is nothing and no one stopping you from doing it. It cannot be any easier… yet a lot of people NEED to have someone else involved.
They NEED a set time to do it.
They NEED a reason to go and do it, even though they could do it a lot easier and a lot cheaper if they were to do it by themselves.
Humans are social creatures; we work better as a team.
And that is probably why a lot of people find it easier to do something when there are others involved than trying to do it alone.
Being part of a group means that you can learn from others, you can get encouragement from others (it has been said that people need encouragement more than they need advice), and you can get the accountability you need.
Accountability is a strange beast.
For some odd reason, most humans need someone else to hold them accountable for the things they personally want to do and achieve.
You’d think the most important person to please in your life would be yourself. The most important boss or manager in your life should be you.
Yet people will rush to jobs they hate to avoid being sacked by people they don’t like…but when it comes to their own lives, a lot of people will not turn up or they will quit not long after starting something they actually WANT to do.
They basically ‘sack’ themselves from the life they actually want!
They can stay in a job they hate for years; they will turn up on time every day for years to prevent being sacked…
But they will sack themselves at the earliest moment while doing something they love!
It really makes no sense.
So, what I want you to think about today is this…
Is there a ‘group experience’ that you can sell to people?
The thing about a group experience is that as we have seen with the yoga day offer, you don’t actually need to give people more than being part of a group activity.
Think of those diet clubs where people pay to go and stand on scales and have a card stamped along with others.
There is nothing that happens in those clubs that each person cannot do themselves at home apart from… share the moment with others and chat with people who are in ‘the same boat’.
Even the talks that are given by the person running the group consist of information that can be found online or in books. None of it is new or unique.
The only difference between these clubs and doing it alone is:
- Group participation.
- Encouragement and support from other like minded people.
If you can offer that – and bear in mind that the encouragement and group participation is through ‘other’ customers – then you can be onto a winner.
Simply create a group that people can join to talk or do something specific. Just be there as the lead and allow others to enjoy being in the group.
Kind regards
John Harrison.
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