More Yoga Teachers

There’s been an explosion in the number of certified yoga teachers  — 70,000 at last count  (NAMASTA, 2005), plus the many newly minted teachers since then. The pressures of a sustained economic downturn are causing many to seek alternative careers.

Some of the newcomers want a more rewarding second career, a means to give back to their community. Some are recent college grads who’ve struggled to land a job that they find meaningful, people who see value in the yoga lifestyle. Others are people who have faced a major life passage or health crisis, been transformed thanks to yoga, and now want to share the joy of their practice.

Whatever their motivation, yoga’s increasing popularity has led to an explosion in teacher certifications, but this is not without risk for both newcomers and existing studios.

More Challenges for Yoga Teachers

If there are too many teachers within easy driving distance, it’s hard for new teachers to make an adequate living until you succeed in attracting a loyal set of students who attend your classes on a regular basis… Studio owners manage a limited inventory of available class times and space, so they prefer popular teachers who can fill the classes.

This is the classic “Catch 22″ situation for the the teacher.  It takes time to earn a good reputation as a valued teacher, time to build recognition for your contributions, time for word-of-mouth to generate referrals from your students to their friends.

The question is, how can new teachers speed that up? The answer is, by standing out, being different in ways that matter to students and the studio owner. (In the business world, this is referred to as “personal branding.”)

The challenge boils down to figuring out the authentic path that will enable you to attract the right students — people who will benefit from your particular teaching and interaction skills; people who will enthusiastically recommend you and your studio to their friends and family.

In a crowded urban market you need to stand out, be recognized for what is distinctive and meaningful about your services, your studio and its location, the caliber of your teachers and the vibrancy of your studio’s community.

Be Different — But in Ways That Are Meaningful

Start by spending some time looking around to understand what the other studios are offering in your area. Talk to other studio owners to see what’s working for them. Talk to yoga students about what’s missing from their current class experiences. Ask them how they would describe their “dream classes.” When and where would those classes take place. What would be different about the student-teacher interaction from what they’ve experienced today.

Then invest some quality time thinking about how you can make your offering more distinctive — more directly relevant to prospective students within driving distance of your studio. What’s special about the people who live in your area?

If you’re in a highly competitive area (like Los Angeles, New York or the Bay Area), think about ways to position your studio or some of your classes to appeal more narrowly to a specific set of students who share common needs or interests. For example,

• Classes for boomer women, or mother-daughter classes
• Classes for people struggling with specific health or mobility challenges: such as chronic arthritis, back/spine issues, or cancer
• Classes for people who need help restoring their self-esteem (or even their youthful appearance), as a result of being laid off or other painful life passages
• Classes for bikers, skiers and runners who need help relaxing those overly tight leg muscles, or to build upper body strength
• Classes for tennis players, or skiers, or golfers — you get the idea

What about classes that target specific pain zones — the kinds of anatomical or bio-mechanical problems that many people in your area are likely to experience? How about team-teaching with a like-minded physical therapist?

• Classes for people with tight shoulders, disk issues or neck problems — the kinds of issues faced by people who spend too many hours at the computer
• Classes for people with lower back weakness, or balance challenges
• Combined nutrition and yoga classes for people who want to manage (and maintain) weight loss in a non-faddish way

Increase Your Reach

Have you explored whether people who work for the larger employers in your area might be interested in classes offered at their workplace (after hours, before the workday begins, or during lunch hours)?

Classes at over-55 communities, senior centers, churches, etc.?

In addition to your private tutorials, have you developed classes or other services to help your students get more benefit out of their home-based asanas?

Do you offer asana guidance via podcasts that your students can download and listen to at home or when they’re traveling? If you get good at this, you might be able to offer a subscription service for a series of weekly or monthly podcasts that you market over the Internet.

If you have a friend with a digital camcorder, why not post some videos of your teaching style and philosophy on YouTube?

Have you thought about ways you might provide some online instruction (yoga sequences, guided meditation, etc.) that students could use to guide their practice, at the student’s convenience, on days when she can’t get to a studio for a scheduled class?

Some Examples from a Seattle Studio

The studio where I practice is quite sophisticated; their classes are overflowing. Here are some of the things my teachers do to keep themselves in front of their students when we’re not in their class:

• Create and sell an annual yoga calendar that features real students in a series of poses (including women over 80!)
• Send monthly newsletters by email to students who choose to receive them. The emails contain poems or stories written by the teachers, often with photos that inspire meditation — and reminders about upcoming classes, retreats, and special events.
• Host several special events each quarter (like weekend retreats in lovely settings within a few hours’ drive of their studio) or classes on special topics.
• And of course, they have a web site with information about the teachers, the classes, the events calendar, etc.

If you’re struggling to keep your yoga studio vibrant and full of students, I hope one or more of these ideas will lead to increased business success for you.

Society as a whole benefits when yoga values infuse people’s daily lives and activities. But for the struggling yoga studio or newly certified teacher, explosive growth in teacher certifications leads to increased competition in the local market. To thrive and grow in a crowded market requires a thoughtful strategy, one that’s put into practice via a focused and disciplined set of tactics.

Namaste.

Print PDF

Those So-called “Customer Satisfaction” Surveys

• Call multiple times a day, every day, until we finally take the customer sat survey
• Survey customers about every single customer service interaction, no matter how minor — but never ask the really big questions, like how you could improve your product or service to better meet our needs
• Or never survey us at all
• Ask only questions that have a numeric rating scale (block us from offering qualitative feedback)
• Trap us on the phone for 20 minutes
• Lose us in an endless IVR queue if we’re foolish enough to call back

BMW’s dealers are a case in point. Here in Seattle every time my car has a service appointment, I have to take a satisfaction survey. Two different dealers, same behavior.

On the other hand I have never once been asked to complete a customer sat survey for BMW dealers in Massachusetts — and I’ve used 3 different dealers’ repair facilities over the past 10 years. Believe me, some of those dealers really should be conducting customer sat surveys…

• “Game” the survey results: It seems that almost every CSR who knows his company will conduct a sat audit will beg and plead for a perfect score, before wrapping up his transaction with you.

I understand service reps’ pay is often tied to how well they do on the customer sat audits, but still, their behavior is sickening. And it means the survey findings are questionable, at best.

Promote Offers You Can’t Deliver

For companies with big investments in technology, there’s no excuse these days to send direct mail offers for products and services you can’t deliver. Please: save our trees while protecting your brand. Don’t waste our time, or your resources.

Case in point…

For the past decade, my local phone company has sent multiple direct mail pieces a month — sometimes a dozen or more per month — promoting “high speed” Internet access. Which they can’t actually deliver.

At this location their download bandwidth capability is limited to 1.5MB/sec, versus the 7MB/sec that they promote in their mailers or online ads. Meanwhile the cable company can deliver >50MB/sec to this location.

By now you’d think the phone company’s marketing team would filter their target addresses to exclude people unlikely to benefit from their offers. Given the competitive alternatives, their pricing is way too high for such low bandwidth, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict their value prop won’t be appealing for under-served customers. Stop reminding us that your Internet capabilities are sub-par!

As a result every time they send such an offer, they annoy me at the paper they’re squandering, and reinforce my low impression of their capabilities. They’ve trained me not to follow up on their offers, because experience suggests they’re making promises they can’t deliver on.

Print PDF

A landmark event in 20th century music, the 1964 Ed Sullivan Show ignited the outbreak of Beatlemania in America. Like every other girl in America, I fell in love that night. With rock ‘n’ roll, and the Beatles.

Photos © Apple & the Beatles

Today marks another landmark: the Beatles have finally agreed to distribute their music via Apple iTunes (to their relief and Apple’s). This agreement has been more than 20 years in the making (and has probably enriched multiple lawyers on 2 continents in the process).

Apple’s web site offers a loving tribute to the Beatles via streaming videos of landmark performances, gorgeous photo albums, and more. All presented with the design flair you expect of Apple.

A Long Journey to Resolution…

Anyone who has been following the Apple vs. Beatles saga knows that the two have been at loggerheads for more than 2 decades over trademark disputes to the name “Apple” and the logos (finally resolved in 2007).  Here are logos from the 1980’s for the two marks. We all know what Apple’s logo looks like these days…

If you’ve owned a vinyl Beatles album (pre-CD days), you may recall the Granny Smith apple symbol, a reference to the Beatles’ corporate entity, Apple Corps Ltd, a multi-media publishing empire. One of their main divisions was “Apple Records.”

As long as Apple Computer competed only in the computer and IT technology realm, the two giants maintained an uneasy détente. But once Apple started to market enabling technologies for music, such as the early MIDI board that connected synthesizers and musical instruments to their computers, the battle began in earnest. Since then Apple’s amazingly successful ventures into consumer electronics and music distribution — their achievements of the past decade — have dramatically upped the stakes to this conflict.

The Labors of Many…

As a former Apple employee, I had some insights into this dispute… For some of the time I worked in Apple’s marketing organization, the music marketing team reported to me.

Charged with market development, those marketers were passionate evangelists: driven to educate musicians and composers that music could be created, performed, or enjoyed with the help of Apple Macintoshes. (This was 10 years before Apple introduced the iPod.) Those were early days; so few musicians recorded or performed with Macs on stage that my team knew everyone who was doing anything.

Even so, that 2-person music marketing team spent an inordinate amount of time briefing Apple’s lawyers. (Inordinate relative to the revenues being generated.)

The legal team was locked in a seemingly endless dispute with the Beatles’ business managers over rights to the “apple” trademark. My team was frustrated by the fact that the Beatles themselves couldn’t be bothered to venture an opinion on the subject (most likely because Apple’s impact on the music business 20 years ago was so small). Year after year, Apple’s lawyers engaged with their lawyers — and the army of “suits” who sheltered the Beatles from nasty real-world issues like copyright disputes and competitive realms.

Fast-forward 20 years, iTunes has become the most dominant force in music distribution, Apple’s brand the world’s most respected (or one of the most respected), and the Beatles have finally reached agreement with Apple… Everyone wins, especially music lovers.

It’s a bittersweet moment for people who know how long this dispute has raged. But it helps me understand why Apple has devoted so much time, energy and money to the Beatles tribute that appears on their website today.

It’s been a long journey. Finally, music to our ears: the Beatles’ music can now play on our iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Print PDF

She loves Kindle’s promise, but disenchantment is already setting in… For reasons that aren’t clear, the usage scenario she has in mind is not well supported by the current market environment. She has spent hours searching www.amazon.fr, to no avail. No French books to speak of, and hardly any periodicals.

Her trial subscription to Le Monde has revealed a number of usability issues. There’s no teaser format that enables her to skip to the articles that most interest her. No images, text only.

Update: March 14, 2012 — Amazon has launched the French Kindle Store (at last!), and now offers over 4000 French classics at no charge. You can visit Amazon for more information on what’s available for French speakers. It will be interesting to see how long it takes the French publishing industry to agree to release current titles for enjoyment on a Kindle… Here’s a summary of the current situation.

And now, back to my friend’s wish list — for the experience she wants on a Kindle…

En Français, S’il Vous Plait

Her dream: read French novels, newspapers and magazines on a conveniently portable device like the Kindle. Current releases, not just 19th century public domain books. Because she’s passionate about perfecting her French comprehension and pronunciation skills, she’d love to read while listening to a simultaneous playback via MP3 (or equivalent).

French is not her native language, so she wants to be able to select unfamiliar words on the Kindle, thereby launching a built-in dictionary whose entries explain their meaning. She’d also welcome the option of viewing French-to-English translations of unknown words and slang (a must-have for people whose French is less fluent than hers.)

She’s very interested in Kindle’s text-to-speech option, especially if it doesn’t sound like a robot. Needless to say, she expects the text-to-speech option for French content to produce words pronounced correctly in French, rather than listen to a techno-voice trying to pronounce French words as if they had been written in English.

Before ordering the Kindle, my friend did some research which revealed that Amazon had released a digital publishing platform for French language authors in January. That sparked her purchase of a Kindle. Surely, she thought, there’d be French ebooks in the marketplace by now, 6+ months since Amazon released its multi-language publishing platform.

Hélas! She’s learned there are few contemporary books in French for Kindle. And no linked dictionary for French content as there is for English language content.

Too Early, Or Too Unusual?

Her big question: is she just suffering early adopter pains, and if she waits patiently, will someday have the opportunity to read French books and magazines on a Kindle? Or is she an outlier, a member of a niche market of French readers who would welcome electronic books, but who are too few in number to motivate the French publishing industry to embrace the new digital formats?

And what about the French government’s continuing quest to promulgate the French language around the world? Will France succeed in ensuring a steady demand for French language publications beyond French borders? And if so, surely digital formats would make French publications more easily accessible to a broader global audience if booksellers could avoid the brick-and-mortar challenges of inventory forecasting, shipping costs and other import-related challenges.

Update

The Wall Street Journal describes the role of the French government in protecting the rights of small independent booksellers, and speculates on what’s in store for electronic books (September 24, 2010 article). Will the same law that protects small booksellers against heavy discounting also apply to electronic books?

Print PDF

One of my friends has just had a big promotion. An expert in personal branding, she’s in the process of changing all of her online profile photos to be more consistent with her new role as a worldwide executive for a major software company. Personal branding is also an issue for my brother and his daughter as they plan how best to market their book and increase the audience of potential readers.

Given the “Big C” subject of their story, their book’s credibility could be undermined by their physical beauty. The authors have chosen to work with a photographer who earns his living shooting fashion models for glossy magazines. This makes handsome people downright glamorous.

But fortunately, for the sake of marketing his book, my brother’s face hints at the story he has to tell. He has blogged extensively about his fight, and has begun mentoring others who confront similar battles. The book is his response to his fans’ requests to hear more about his story.

At least to those of us who know and love him, his face reveals some of  the pain of his battle with head and neck cancer (caused by a virus). In many of her photos, his step-daughter’s face seems less marked by her bouts with cancer. The blessings of youth, perhaps?

I’m glad they chose a photo that reveals some of the anguish they’ve suffered. Had they not done so, had their photo been “too beautiful,” it might have raised questions about the authenticity of their story.

It’s a beautiful story, and one that could help many others when their book is finally published. Beautiful faces, beautiful story, but scary subject matter.

Print PDF

Cultivating community can be as simple as a friendly yoga class, a shared meal or an inspiring workshop. This can sow seeds towards creating a soul-centered kinship of yogis who take their community “off the mat” and beyond the studio walls.

Community Begins with the Teacher

For almost a year, I attended a yoga studio in the heart of Sydney, Australia. It was a busy school, packed with workers from nearby buildings, and had a “buzz” of the town outside. I attended several classes a week and was often taught by a particular teacher who, time and again, asked for my name. The first dozen times, I didn’t mind.

Another evening after class, I heard a teacher invite several students to the pub for a drink after class. I wasn’t offended by a yoga teacher having a drink with his students (Who knows? They may even have been drinking soda water.), it was the inclusive/exclusive inference that left me feeling on the outside.

My present yoga teacher cultivates community in each and every class he teaches. Not only does he have a gift for remembering names and the physical limitations of each student, he gently uses our names to verbally adjust students, which also works to introduce us to each other.

Creating Community — One Class at a Time

Each class is made up of a collection of individuals who bring with them the emotions and preoccupations of their particular day. I’ve witnessed yoga teachers change students’ differing energies, uniting the class towards common goals such as mindfulness.

Rather than create challenges for the more experienced yogis in the room, try to teach each class as if all your students are beginners — make your instructions accessible, your tone welcoming, and your spirit encouraging. A sense of fun and joyfulness is a powerful teaching tool and helps students lighten up and smile at their neighbors. Ask students to introduce themselves to the people next to them in small classes. And lead students in a Namaste to each other at the end of class.

Humor is most effective at helping students get out of their heads and onto their mats. Crack a joke and see people relax — most effective after a core strength session. One of my favorite teachers has a gift for cracking jokes at opportune moments. Although these jokes can be a bit off-colour at times, they are accompanied by a charming, open smile; my teacher easily disarms new students of their concerns that all yoga teachers are serious and holier-than-thou.

Taking the Classroom Outside

Encouraging students to linger longer can start with a cup of tea, extend to a meal, and end up with people volunteering in their community — it’s all in the spirit of inclusion.

One successful Sydney studio does this with grace as the yoga teacher boils a kettle in the reception room and offers students who linger after class a cup of tea. A meal at a local restaurant after a yoga workshop or the completion of a course also encourages students to relax and get to know one another outside of class. Depending on your locale and the students’ means, either bundle the meal into the price of the workshop or let everyone know it’s “Dutch treat.” Some studios sponsor annual or seasonal group meals, and ask students who want to participate to contribute something, such as a favorite home-cooked dish, to share with their teachers and fellow yogis.

For students who are frequent visitors to your yoga studio, offering a volunteer program can help build a sense of community, and not only among the volunteers. One yoga city studio I have attended has a “karma yoga” program offering free yoga classes in exchange for cleaning duties. I began volunteering at another studio giving adjustments and corrections during Saturday classes. I was already an experienced yoga student at that time and much appreciative of the personal instructions given to me by the yoga teacher. The studio also benefited from having an extra set of eyes and hands during busy classes.

Widening Your Community

Groups tend to be judged by their actions before people listen to their words. Perhaps the single most powerful thing yogis can do to encourage new people to experience the benefits of yoga is to become more involved in community services. This also allows students to experience karma yoga, the yoga of action.

Samadhi Yoga in Sydney has a formal “Yoga in the Community” program, and offers 16 heavily-discounted classes per week to anyone who wishes to attend. This organization also runs programs in conjunction with drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, at-risk child care services, clinics for patients with AID and juvenile justice units. While this type of commitment may be some years off for a fledgling studio, a “clean the park” picnic day, a free weekly class after school to local teenagers, or a visit to an aged care home is more easily manageable.

Each yoga studio has the potential to become a hub of activity for the community beyond its walls. When we gather together with the hope of reaching self-realization, we are working toward recognizing the universality of all beings, and achieving peace and freedom not only for ourselves, but also our worldwide community. Taking our yoga practice “off the mat” and into the world.

— Brook McCarthy, YogaReach, Sydney, Australia

Print PDF

Sadly for shoppers (but not the store), all 4 of the dressing rooms were in constant use, resulting in at least a 15-minute wait to try on apparel for size and fit. As a testament to Lululemon brand loyalty, almost everyone waited patiently in line for a dressing room rather than go elsewhere. (There is at least one other yoga apparel store at this location, so people have other options within a 5-minute walk.)

Most of the bins for pants and crops in my size were empty, and the same was true for tops and tanks. I overhead one sales person tell a shopper that they replenish their merchandise on a weekly basis. 

Another positive sign, the cashiers’ lines were busy; lots of people were buying. Clearly this store doesn’t suffer from shoppers muttering, “Sorry, just looking…” And as everyone knows, yoga wear with Lululemon’s brand is definitely not inexpensive.

As another indicator of consumer confidence and this brand’s appeal, the shop was loaded with men and women across a surprisingly broad range of ages and body types. Yes, the store was packed with teenage girls checking out the latest hoodies, but also with boomer women trying on yoga crops or tops, guys looking at running gear, and men buying gifts for wives and daughters.

There was a lovely buzz in the store. It made me hopeful that this region is starting to rebound from its long slump.

On the other hand, one of my more cynical friends said that people aren’t shopping generally; they just find it easier to rationalize investments in “wellness lifestyle” aids. And if that’s the case Lululemon is certainly benefiting, at least here in the Seattle area.

Print PDF

Why the Voice Matters in Yoga

The sound of a teacher’s voice is an important aspect of a class: what she says and how she says it. It’s a matter of personal taste, but some voices are — to my ear at least— more pleasing than others. In any given class I spend a lot of time listening with either eyes closed or attention focused elsewhere (the drishti gaze). When I’m not actively watching the teacher, the sound of her voice helps me focus my practice or identify where a micro-adjustment might be required. What she says and how she says it can make all the difference between yoga-as-gym-activity and yoga as something more meaningful or uplifting.

Does the teacher’s voice direct your attention to the key focal point(s) for your pose? Does it help you crystallize your intention or improve your ability to shift into your meditation space?

Yes, of course, the content of what the teacher says and how she delivers her instructions are hugely important. That’s the starting point, the sine qua non. If the teacher’s instructional style or her ability to guide you is out of whack with your needs and capabilities, nothing else matters: you need to find a teacher better suited to what you need to learn, or unlearn. Solve that problem first.

Once you’ve found a set of talented teachers whose instruction style and yoga tradition match your preferences, then you can start to pay attention to other factors, like class size, the nature of the invocations or readings, etc. The spiritual content (or lack thereof). The smell of the studio. Its decor. The props on offer.

Ideally, I prefer classes that are small enough to offer semi-individualized attention on how to improve your pose, alignment, action, drishti focal point — whatever. But it’s rare to find a high quality, uncrowded class. In this particular urban area crowded classes are the norm, unless you’ve found a new teacher, a new studio just developing its following, or can take classes at unpopular hours.

In large or crowded classes, it can be difficult to see the teacher when your mat is not up in the front, except for those moments when she stops the class to demonstrate a new or challenging pose. In classes like this the voice matters more than ever. It’s the carrier for good instruction.

Implications for Teachers

If you’re trying to attract more students, think about ways to offer a trial experience of your voice, the quality of your instruction. What about offering some sample podcasts or an online video clip to showcase how you teach and interact with students? Pick a pose or two, find a willing student or two, and get someone’s help to record/video the instructional moment.

Then look for appropriate places online where you can publish or offer your sample of how you teach your students. Facebook, YouTube, your studio’s website, iTunes, online yoga communities — you now have lots of relatively inexpensive opportunities to showcase what makes you such an inspiring teacher. And if this is all technically beyond your skillset, perhaps you can barter some free classes in exchange for technical or professional help with your podcast or sample video.

If you contribute to a blog, think about ways to offer a brief podcast or audio clip in which you share your voice, your values, or what you’re all about as a teacher and yoga practitioner.

Share your voice.

Print PDF

This morning I uncovered a web-based information vortex when I tried to find out how many Americans currently practice yoga. I fell into a circular spiral, with no end point, and lost track of time while trying to find out more. I found numerous blogs and news articles published around the world in 2009, all citing a factoid released by the Yoga Journal based on a poll conducted by Roper Research:

A recent Roper poll, commissioned by Yoga Journal, found that 11 million Americans do yoga occasionally and 6 million perform it regularly.

Source: A January 2009 article published by Reuters. This article can be downloaded from Yoga Journal. More detailed information is not publicly available from Yoga Journal (at least not by online means).

None of the journalists or bloggers who refer to this factoid can explain what is meant by “regular” versus “occasional” practice. (The Reuters article released by Yoga Journal does not define these distinctions.)

What’s Interesting Is What They Don’t Say

Having found so many references to the same slim source, I find myself intensely curious about the questions that are not answered:

• Does the factoid refer only to Americans who live in the US, or does it include Canadians too?
• How many men practice yoga?
• How many people, by age group, practice yoga? Are people trending older or younger?
• How often do regular practitioners practice yoga, and why?
• How do occasional practitioners differ from regular practitioners?
• What factors might motivate someone to shift from occasional to regular practice?
• How many classes do regular practitioners take on a weekly or monthly basis?
• How often do regular yoga practitioners do their asanas at home versus in a class environment?
• Are occasional practitioners more likely to attend class, or follow a DVD at home, or run through their own set of asanas at home?
• How do their spending habits differ?
• Is yoga practice spread evenly across household income levels, or are there interesting patterns?
• What about educational levels?
• What are the regional variations? Coastal or urban dwellers versus “Heartland?”
• How many people teach yoga?
• What’s the (forgive the expression) “viral impact” of regular practitioners? How many newcomers become yoga practitioners as a result of referrals by friends?

You can comb through 3 pages of Google search results and find nothing beyond citations of the same factoid, with pointers to the same Reuters article and the same one-sentence factoid.

Nowhere is there any in-depth information about the actual poll: when it was conducted, how many people were surveyed, using what methodology, how statistically valid the sample is, etc., etc. There’s no information about the specific questions posed in the survey.

The final report from Roper is not readily available online, most likely because it was proprietary research for Yoga Journal, conducted for reasons that aren’t explained. (We can guess: for advertising rate cards.)

But it leaves us hungering for more… It would have been a real service to the yoga community for Yoga Journal to have shared deeper insights than the slim factoid that is currently circulating around the Internet. It’s hard to believe they would commission research from Roper simply to find out how many people practice yoga…

Perhaps the next time they commission research they’ll structure the deal to permit a broader sharing of results.

Print PDF

Here’s the deal: my recycle bin now contains somewhere between 5 and 10 pieces of unopened direct mail offers from Qwest, addressed to my home address and home-based office (2 different accounts from their POV). All of these pieces have been delivered within the past 2 days.

All tout some variation of their so-called high-speed Internet service. Or service bundles based on high-speed Internet bandwidth. Meanwhile, Qwest can only deliver 256K of bandwidth to this location — a situation that has not changed in >10 years.

Living in the Northwest as I do, where the swaths of clear-cut forest are painfully visible, receiving so many useless direct mail pieces is offensive. It makes me sick to think of how many trees are being cut down to produce paper that will be wasted so fruitlessly.

I wish someone at Qwest (or their agency) would figure out how to link their service capabilities database (NOC operations side of the house) with their prospecting databases. This may be politically difficult, given internal silos, but surely it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to develop this data mining and targeting strategy. They could fund it by the improvement in their conversion ratios, by the savings generated from not sending offers that are 100% guaranteed to fail.

If they had a more intelligent data mining and targeting strategy, they would know that this address (and others like mine) should be eliminated from their prospect database until they can radically increase bandwidth delivery to these locations.

Right now, based on actual bandwidth to my office, they are so far from being competitive that it’s laughable — and it tarnishes their brand when they make claims that they cannot deliver on. As a result of these poor marketing practices, whenever I see a direct mail offer from Qwest, my first reaction is “stupid” and “wasteful” — “not sustainable.” They’ve trained me not to open their mailings. Do they even care about their brand?

They send me dozens of useless direct mail pieces every month, not to mention many telemarketing calls that I no longer answer. (I’ve probably told their CSRs a dozen times that until they can deliver >10–15 MB to this location, they have zero chance of persuading me to switch carriers.) What a waste of resources.

Will someone please help this marketing department evolve from the Stone Age?

Print PDF