The Fear Aspect

This one will take the most empathy from everyone. Where some of you thought the whole quarantine thing was a waste, others believe that it was selfishness that made some people ignore or violate the quarantine and cause us not to squash the curve like other countries. Here is not the place to argue that but to realize that if you take 10 students and rated 1-10 the need to be quarantined vs the desire to be out and about, you would probably have one person on every number. Yes. those decisions would be based on what State they live in, what political party they follow, what tv station they watched, their socio economic state, their age, their friends and their own internal way of handling fear of the known and unknown. As most marriage counselors will tell every loving combatant “Sometimes the best advice is not to try to convince the other person that you are right, but that you are listening AND HAVE HEARD their concerns.

So let’s take the above scale of 1-10. With #1s being those that will never group dance again to 10- they are waiting outside of your building right now. If we look at customers 1,2,3, and 4- losing 1 & 2 means you will lose 20% of your customers. 3 & 4s- they’ll be back but not right away, maybe sparingly maybe privates only. So in financial terms right away you will be down 40% of your income. Now customers 5-7s are waiting to see what everyone else will do. They miss it but they are still afraid. These customers will have to be your main target if you want to survive. Like Elizabeth Warren says for this “I have a Plan!”

Cajoling, pleading and begging your students might get them back temporarily but psychologically, you are telling them that their health is less important than your business. Instead creating a desire, a need in them, a feeling of being left out, forgotten will do more to push the #4, 5  & 6s to return right away. Assuming it goes well , there is no huge recurrence, you then can encourage the 3s & 4s to come back.

I am going to give you an immediate suggestion here to achieve this. Reach across to ALL your students and tell them that you are creating an advisory board. Invite them to a) participate b) make suggestions, c) help you in other ways that you may not have realized. Caveat******Though the suggestions made by the Advisory Board do not have to be binding, realize that they might not be very happy if you blow them off in the end.******* Secondly one way to eliminate or lessen fear is to have people put their fears in writing. Sometimes in  writing them down they realize how silly they look, or they rationalize an alternative. Create a response card. Ask them to rate their fear on 1-10 of 1) class rotation; big dances; private lessons, wearing PPE, etc. For many the fear of looking fearful, means they will rate themselves higher. In essence they are talking themselves into being braver. Invite them to comment. By the way rating from 1-3  vs 1-10 gives you a more accurate picture but also 1-10 people tend to rate 7 when then know they are really a 5.

If you actually read through all three of my writings on the problems- Thank you.  Now let me tell you about the Plan.