Journey of a studio owner....Finding home: calming the fears and fending off the jeers...

Who's to say everyone will transition smoothly into the new venture???
This is not a sit-com where people smile and are excited and everyone loves ya. This is reality.

Although we have it trained in us that you can't please people all the time, but to put out the fires....really? Yes. Really.

After much research based on price, location, accessibilty, average crime statisics, population demographics, number of similar businesses in the radius, average driving distance of our current students, safety, and other demographical related information, we decidded for the city of Moreno Valley.
Moreno Valley is a moderately sized bedroom community of Riverside County. It sits on the northwest corner of the county within an hour's drive to Los Angeles or Orange County. Sounds great? Well, the city has had it's share of stigma. After the major Air Force base closed, a mass exodus of military families left and were replaced with a diverse population. The city in the past has had it's share of problems, but what city doesn't?? What surprised us the most is the crime rate in Moreno Valley is much lower per capita than Riverside. Violent crime in Riverside was well above the state average, while in Moreno Valley it was well below. After we saw that, we investigated more because what we 'heard or seen on the media' did not add up to what we saw in the state's statistics and we found something quite interesting....some cities have a very good public relations department that can easily pursuade the media into thinking otherwise....but thankfully cannot pursuade state statistics. It's a dirty little secret that PR people know people don't like to do their own research...so...whatever they say, people listen.

When we announced we would move the studio to Moreno Valley, we were met with a level of disappointment and almost mob mentality fears.
Bottom line, every city has it's problems and every police or sheriff's department does their best to stop crime from their next victim.
I look at the facts such as the state's statistics from population demographics to crime statistics - this city is no more dangerous than the next...it's all about awareness and proactivitiy.

After standing on my soapbox and making everyone see the light, slowly people accepted that moving to that location may indeed be the 'hidden gem' we were looking for.

Win #1...for now....

Now that the shock of our location has been revealed, somehow attendance started to dwindle down. I somehow think everyone was expecting to move into the new location within weeks of our decision. Those weeks turned into more weeks, which turned into months...and finally some people flat out approached us and said, I won't attend anymore until we are in the new location. We figured the same for those who didn't contact us back. People were becoming impatient...with every glitch, delay, or red tape, we steadily saw a decline in attendance. This also meant a decline in income. It was better to stay low key with all the delays we were expereiencing than to bring a wave of students only to be dissapointed with their lack of understanding about our situation....remember it's about them and their needs, not us.

The Jeers...

There is an old adage about 'you can't please all the people all of the time...' I thought I had thick enough skin, but because of the 'sisterhood' of dance, I thought everyone would be suportive and those who weren't would just turn the other way. However, much to my surprise, to have negativity on our path was something a little bit unexpected. We're not talking complaints...we're talking not so nice stuff. In this industry, to endure all this, you need thick skin. Fighting back would mean we were down at their level and it could be turned around making us look like the bad guys in this mess. All we could do is just to tread on and do what we want to do.

Rumors are the worst. As stated above in both parts, the average person does not want to investigate things for themselves. They want to go to some source or person and just be told so. "If so and so says it, then it must be true...". By the time it gets to us, it's one hot mess that we need to backtrack and do some serious damage control. It's an exhausting process and most unessesary one to say the least.

It's a challenge to do this in a tactful dignified manner so it won't make us look like one of the 'crazies' out there - enough said.

Rumors will always happen, but as long as we remain open and don't hide anything, our students will know who is telling the truth. Wouldn't it be easier for everyone to just go straight to the source? Apparently not.
I still can't figure out what's so magical about believing a rumor or second hand tainted information? Some things I will never figure out.


Next blog: Finding Home: not one, but two, but three times!

MECDA Professional Conference and Retreat....the recap...

A little over a month ago, I had attended the first MECDA Professional Conference and Retreat. The first one of it's kind with everything I could ever want and need for my upcoming business was included in one neat weekend package. Even though I was part of the volunteer staff, working for the event has never been so fun and fulfilling!
I got to be the room attendant for each of the conference rooms throughout the day and got to listen (and sometimes participate in) some valuable classes.

Because I was opening up my business, classes like developing your own pedagogy, teaching practicum, and injury prevention from Amara to the many classes from Julie Eason of the Bellydance Business Academy, some fun informative lectures from Devilla and Princess Farhana and other masters like Angelika, Zahra Zuhair, and Mesmera. These classes are essential tools in building my business and nurturing it along the way to success.

One of the unexpected experiences I had at the conference was the camaraderie all the dancers - both professional and pre-professional attending....everyone was so nice and helpful - far removed from the nature of some bellydancers in my area.

Everyone shared ideas.
Everyone shared thoughts.
Everyone shared experiences.
Everyone shared laughter.
Everyone shared tears.

There was no competition, exclusivity, indifference with any of the attendees or instructors - we were all one - one with a common goal...one of paving the way to the future and standing strong together as a dance community.

Now more than ever, I strive to make my goal and mission for more unity in the dance community - to share, love, and experience together what makes this dance a true form of art. I admit, I wondered how I could cram all this info and make it useful?
I got my business partner to open a twitter account, think of other media ways we can promote our studio or troupes, explore various marketing ideas, start a blog page for my studio, regularly posting with my own blog, negotiated with the landlord on some better deals, and most of all think clearly with an open mind. My business partner was fortunate to be one of the subjects in Amara's teaching practicum class and also is going to apply some applications she even learned from that session! Applying all this was not as hard as I thought. I had many 'a-ha' moments both during the conference as well as setting up my plans for the future....something a dancer should experience daily.

My studio is slowly getting off the ground, no opening date yet, and when it does, I will definitely blog about it!
With the tools I learned from the conference, I consider it valuable beyond the price you'd pay to just to attend it. I enjoyed everything about it...'work' didnt seem like work and I'd work the event all over again!

Here is a recap of the conference with some plugs on how great it was. As you can see...yes, we did have fun too...