Advice You - Business

Today, I am going to share a fundamental formula for running a successful business – it works for just about ANY type of business. It works for IBM and Chevrolet, and it also works for the restaurant down the street. In fact, I use it with most yoga studios.

Very simply, there are five steps to running a successful business:

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

> Decide who will you serve

Find out what they want

Get it

Let them know you have it AND how it will help them

Give it to them

That's it. Class dismissed. Okay, so you want some explanation? Let's take it one step at a time. This will take a few minutes to go though, but

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

I promise it's worth it. And, at the end, I'll give you a way to evaluate your own studio. I'll use an example of Kona's sandwich shop, a restaurant near where I live, then we'll also apply it to a studio.

1. Decide who you will serve. You will do far better in business if you can narrow down your audience. Select a niche (or a number

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

of them). I like to consider three criteria in choosing a niche:

a) Can they comfortably afford my products or services? b) Can I easily reach them (advertise & market to them)? c) Are they likely to be interested in what I'm selling (Does it ease some discomfort or provide some pleasure or benefit)?

Kona's sandwich shop is near a state

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

niversity. They aim to serve students – this is their primary target market. Here's how they do on the niche criteria. First, students are often low on cash, so they sell low-priced sandwiches. You can get a good sandwich and a drink for under $5.00 (they probably couldn't make it selling sandwiches for $12.95, as downtown restaurants do). Nex

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

t, students are mostly located on the university campus. They can be reached through on-campus ads, university newspaper, etc. Finally, students need to eat, and a take-out/eat-in place like Kona's fits their lifestyle well.

What are successful niches for a yoga studio? Back pain relief yoga, pre-natal yoga, weight-loss yoga, stress re

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

ief yoga, etc. Many studio owners feel they serve everyone. This may be true, but your students want to feel like you specialize in their needs. If you offer weight-loss yoga, you can probably find potential students at Weight Watchers, Overeaters Anonymous, a local gym, etc. There are clear ways to contact them. If they are already participat

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

ing in another program to help with weight loss, they can quite possibly afford yoga too.

2. Find out what they want. Kona's tried serving everything from pizza to baked potatoes over the years, but again and again, they found that students just want a basic sandwich. A low-priced one that is freshly made. So this is just what they ser

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

e.

Looking at a studio, even though the class might be the same for some of the niches we've talked about, the reason people come is different. You MUST clearly know why these people might want to come to your studio. This means that you want to put coupons that say “Easier Childbirth and Less Pain – Try Pre-natal Yoga” in an OB/GYN's office.

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

But the therapist's office gets the ones that say “Did you know that yoga can relieve stress and anxiety?”

3. Get it. This means get whatever you need to provide the product or service to your customers. Kona's got the ingredients and hired a staff of sandwich-makers. This is all they need. For a studio, this step means that you need

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

qualified teachers and a space to teach yoga. If you sell products, it means buying inventory. That's it (It's much easier after doing steps 1 & 2).

4. Let them know you have it AND what it will do for them. The folks at Kona's are great at this. They advertise in just about everything that the university students read. They provide co

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

upons, because students always want to save a buck. They let students know that the sandwiches are freshly made, taste great and will fill them up. We all seek to avoid pleasure an pain (though most people will do more to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure). For Kona's, this means letting students know they will avoid the “pain” of spe

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

ding lots of money. And, they will have the “pleasure” or benefit of having a fresh sandwich that tastes great.

Notice that when we talked about pre-natal and stress-relief yoga, we addressed this too. Pregnant women spend time in Ob/Gyn offices, so we want to put coupons or postcards there. And, we don't use generic ones either – they are si

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

mple and specific. Basically, they say “you won't feel as much childbirth pain if you come to our studio and do yoga!” That's all it takes to persuade many women to give it a try.

5. Give it to them. This means that you have to provide whatever your selling in a comfortable and convenient way. No one wants to wait in line too long for

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

sandwich, nor do they want to have no place to sit and eat it. Kona's has a sandwich assembly line with one person putting on each layer of the sandwich, so the customer gets it quickly. They provide lots of indoor and outdoor seating so customers receive a positive dining experience. Kona's has been one of the most successful sandwich resta

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

urants in town for over 20 years.

In our sample studio, this is where the “rubber meets the road.” I believe in giving students an “Exceptional Experience” (as I've talked about in past newsletters). When a students leaves your studio feeling like they are truly a being of spirit and light (or their back hurts less, or they are losing weight,

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

etc.) then you have successfully delivered what you promised. Not only will they be back, but they will bring their friends.

Now let's apply it to your studio. Ask yourself the following questions:

What niches do I serve? Do I advertise or market to them specifically (or do you just post generic yoga fliers everywhere)?
y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products
i>
What is the real reason they might want yoga? What pain or discomfort in their life do they hope it will ease? What positive benefit will it provide?
Now that you know what they want, ask yourself: Do I have the staff and space I need to serve these people's wants and needs?
How am I targeting these potential s

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

udents? Where do they spend time? Am I clearly letting them know what results they will see in their life from yoga (or do I just let them know they can come to my studio for yoga, but figuring out the results are their business)?

Am I providing an exceptional experience to my students and clients? Do they leave my studio feeling “

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

Wow, that was great!” It takes some patience to go through these (and some brutal honesty), but I have yet to see a studio that has completed these steps thoroughly and is not successful.

Namast?, Al Lipper Coach Al Lipper

If you found this information insightful, pass on the good fortune to others right now. Thank you

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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It's one thing to get customers to purchase your products and another to have customers continue to buy from you. This article is going share with you the top 10 ways to keep your customers coming back for more.

The customer is always right – this is really about an attitude of mind. Even if the customer appears really unreasonable, listen to them, hear what they have to say, paraphrase your understanding and find ways to go for a win-win. The customer wants to feel listened to and valued. Listening, reflecting back and letting it be known that you do really want to help, goes a long way to meeting customer needs.

Hiring someone new to work in your business is one of the most critical decisions you will make, although it is not always given the justice it deserves. Recruitment decisions are often driven by the pressure to get someone in quickly, rather than waiting for the best person to fill the job. Lack of proper and systematic recruitment process can also result in a high cost to the business. The direct and indirect costs of this recruitment process are many, and have been estimated to be at least 30% of the new person’s salary...

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