Ceroc Domination Part IV

[Raul]

#I can understand how customers see it as an annoyance but for many teachers and organizers their dance nights make up part of their income - so they are naturally protective.

This does lead to in-fighting and what contributes to that is that many people do it for the love, not the money. This means that they are passionate (in the most part) about what they do and because customers are notoriously transitory, have to work very hard at maintaining what business they have.

Ceroc are easy to knock because they are the big boys, but they are rarely the aggressor - these comments about Kent for instance, as Russ says, there is another story to that....

Those of us who experience this day in and day out are tired of how Ceroc is portrayed when all we see are hardworking, passionate individuals who are trying to run honest businesses. I'm not saying that everyone is squeaky clean, (although I personally have never seen any instances of impropriety) because when you 'employ' 100's of people it's obviously impossible to keep close tabs on everyone.

With the greatest respect, 'your bit' involves turning up and dancing and hopefully having a good time (assuming you are not crew of some description) - 'our bit' is far more complex than that and involves very real problems that some of us can't help but vocalize. If a venue fails, as far as you are concerned it's not a big problem - sure you might be unhappy, but you can just go and dance somewhere else. If a venue fails for an organizer it can lead to £1,000's of debt and loss of face and loss of confidence.

Yes, it does spill over into the forum and to be fair I'm mostly to blame for that - but that's just because I know what goes on and I'm fairly bad at keeping my mouth shut. Sure, I overstep the mark on occasion but I am trying to temper that approach as hopefully my last few posts have demonstrated.

Yes I am just a dancer/"punter", but even new "punters" realise the amount of effort that goes into a MJ evening - putting out the banners, setting the music, preparing for the class, clearing up etc - there is a lot of work involved for sure.

Punters who try other form of dances soon realise how well some MJ Classes are organised - I have been to many non MJ classes held in pubs where one week you have 12 women and 2 men and the next week 4 man and 1 woman; the teacher does not have a demo and borrows inexperienced dancers to demonstrate the moves and the place is shut because of water leakage for 2 weeks and no one is told. You guys are doing extremely well.

The efficiency of the operation does impact significantly on the continued success of the venue as do the helpfulness and friendliness of the teacher and "staff". Yes, if you put in a lot of effort, and you make a financial commitment, you get very passionate and a bit defensive, it is natural.

My personal view, and I stand to be corrected, is that you should believe and know that those who make a lesser effort will naturally get worse results in the long run. This goes without saying - and it does not matter what they say or how they say it or where they say it (on this forum for example).
As Tramp points out, the dancers who have been around will seek specialised skills e.g. Jango, Utopia, Latin even Salsa, Tango and Ballroom. Some will go to all weekenders available, whoever it is run by, as long as it offers them something different and value for money.

This does not mean that we value the "base product" less. We will always recommend our friends to try MJ at root level as it addresses the new dancer extremely well, we will always enjoy dancing at our main haunts and meet old faces. We will always be grateful to those who have helped us.

When you say that "one of the competitors" is nicking your punters, what exactly are they nicking? I doubt if they are nicking the whole person for life. As you have pointed out Punters feel free to go where they want - even the most loyal dancers get bored going to the same place for too long and appreciate a change of scenery, do you consider that poaching? The Punters could very well come back and appreciate how good you really have.

The way I look at it is - I will dance until my legs drop off. I think that i will be around for a while!! But no organisation owns me although i have great respect and much loyalty to all those who helped me, especially in the earlier days. Our friends and teachers do not necessarily fly under the same banners. Sure our "bit" is to have a good time, but do not forget that we are as human as you are and we have intelligence, memory and loyalty too. We are not wallets with legs.

.

[SteveK]

Somewhere in the thread it was mentioned that giving beginners free passes is a way to get them hooked and through the door. I disagree and strongly believe that free entry to venues devalues the worth of the night. You cannot possibly build a loyal bases of regulars in this manner. Remove the freebies and they will be gone. It can also alienate clientel. How would you feel if you paid £8 to get into a venue and then found that half of the people there got in for free?

When I started with in Watford with Ceroc London back in Autumn 2005, I paid 10 GBP for my first week, and found out that I got the next three classes free (offer only valid for first three weeks). The first week was a bit intimidating, and I would have found it harder to motivate myself to come back for the second week if it wasn't free. Of course by the third week I was hooked..... I'd conclude that the subsidised entry was very effective at retaining me!

I'm sure that if this freebie hadn't been offered, I probably wouldn't be typing this now...

[Andy McGregor]

Oh. So your 'less than 10%' is purely from going to Horsham on a Wednesday!

Fair enough!

No (sigh), that was an example. It wasn't my complete list of visited venues. Ceroc Horsham is the example I've used because I never intend to revisit that that venue so don't mind naming it. I might go to the other venues, the teacher not working the floor doesn't bother me at all...


As I said, I've visited about a dozen Ceroc venues in my area and have seen only one teacher work the floor. That is one in 12 - you can check my maths but I think it will come out as less than 10%.

[Gav]

As I said, I've visited about a dozen Ceroc venues in my area and have seen only one teacher work the floor. That is one in 12 - you can check my maths but I think it will come out as less than 10%.

FWIW, I regularly visited my local Ceroc venues (4 of them) and the teachers/demos were very rarely seen during freestyle unless they were dancing with each other.
I know that plenty of dancers had noticed this, and I mentioned it in an email to the franchise owners (watch out franchise owners where I'm moving to, I'll tell you what I like and what I don't whether you want to hear it or not. ).
I don't know whether anyone else had mentioned it or if orders came down from on high, but the teachers have definitely been seen dancing with the punters a bit more since then

[Raul]

No (sigh), that was an example. It wasn't my complete list of visited venues. Ceroc Horsham is the example I've used because I never intend to revisit that that venue so don't mind naming it. I might go to the other venues, the teacher not working the floor doesn't bother me at all...


As I said, I've visited about a dozen Ceroc venues in my area and have seen only one teacher work the floor. That is one in 12 - you can check my maths but I think it will come out as less than 10%.

Andy,

I have to tell you that as an "impartial" dancer and observer - your comments come across as pure bitching and finding anything to pick on about your main competitor.

Firstly it was not mentioned that only one Ceroc teacher worked the floor, and secondly, you have limited your replies to Ceroc Teachers. You are intelligent enough to know (and we are intelligent enough to realise) that you have not used the same criterion across the board i.e. the number or percentages of other (independent or non Ceroc) teachers who do work the floor. I could be wrong, but you appear to be watching one Organisation and not the others.

Unless you are fair and reasonable in your comparisons, you, as a Commercial Operator, do not come across at all well.

.

[Andy McGregor]

Andy,

I have to tell you that as an "impartial" dancer and observer - your comments come across as pure bitching and finding anything to pick on about your main competitor.

Firstly it was not mentioned that only one Ceroc teacher worked the floor, and secondly, you have limited your replies to Ceroc Teachers. You are intelligent enough to know (and we are intelligent enough to realise) that you have not used the same criterion across the board i.e. the number or percentages of other (independent or non Ceroc) teachers who do work the floor. I could be wrong, but you appear to be watching one Organisation and not the others.

Unless you are fair and reasonable in your comparisons, you, as a Commercial Operator, do not come across at all well.

.

Dear Raul,

You must have pressed the wrong button. The above letter is written to me, it is a personal communication and, as such, would be better sent as a PM. As you have made your letter public it is an indication that you are not just the simple "dancer/punter" you claim. You are posting to make a point. And you are blindly defending Ceroc without as much experience of it as I have or Gav has. I have posted my experience, much like Gav has. I am not lying, or making anything up, I'm saying what I've observed.

Why am I talking about Ceroc dominating the market and the tactics it uses to do so? It's the topic of the thread. The topic of the thread is not "let's coach Andy about the way he comes across on the Forum". That would be a much longer and more heated thread. My advice to you (you started it) is to stay on-topic when posting.

Are you implying that, as a competitor trying to induce people to come to my classes rather than Ceroc? If that is my objective I'm very bad at it because it has never happened. However, we do have a number of dancers we've introduced to MJ that are now going to the, newly opened Ceroc class in Brighton. How did they find out about the class? I told them and was delighted to do so as that is the one venue I've attended recently where the teachers got out there and danced I encourage all dancers to attend other classes, even those where the teacher is lazy, selfish or just badly briefed. I believe that visiting many venues can only be good for their dancing and, from a business point of view, good for the market as a whole. I am hoping that, when Brighton Ceroc is established, people introduced by Ceroc will start attending my events too. Therefore we all gain. This is why I speak out against the kind of tactics I see being operated by Ceroc Kent. IMHO, it is bad for the market.

Best wishes.

Andy xxx

p.s. just to prove I am not perfect I have posted a bit where I went off topic. What it does do, however, is show you, Raul, that you were wrong when you said "you have limited your replies to Ceroc Teachers". You are obviously intelligent, please apply that intelligence to ensuring that your facts are correct and that you stay on-topic.

On the subject of attrition rates, I think that one of the factors Rocky hasn't mentioned is product quality. We have a local organiser who is a fairly good teacher (like me, initially trained to teach by Nigel Anderson) and businessman, but he is a weak dancer (not taught to dance by Nigel) and DJ. This means that he gets a lot of people through the door and he either puts them off MJ or teaches them to dance so badly that we have to spend time fixing their bad habits when they come to us - woodface tells me that there is a similar situation in Hastings. With the standard of dance being so poor with some teachers I think that MJ needs a national standard and a syllabus for teachers. I think that Ceroc dominating the market means that this is unlikely to come about.

[StokeBloke]

FWIW, I regularly visited my local Ceroc venues (4 of them) and the teachers/demos were very rarely seen during freestyle unless they were dancing with each other.
I know that plenty of dancers had noticed this, and I mentioned it in an email to the franchise owners (watch out franchise owners where I'm moving to, I'll tell you what I like and what I don't whether you want to hear it or not. ).
I don't know whether anyone else had mentioned it or if orders came down from on high, but the teachers have definitely been seen dancing with the punters a bit more since then

Just a quick question Gav. Did any of these dancers actually get refused a dance from the teacher/demo; or were the teachers just not asking punters to dance? I know that there are many dancers who would find it intimidating to dance with a teacher, and maybe these teachers are sensitive to that problem and tending not to ask. I am not saying that this attitude is right or wrong, I am just trying to work out why our experiences of dance teachers at Ceroc venues are so wildly different.

Well done telling the franchisee how it is BTW.

[Gav]

Just a quick question Gav. Did any of these dancers actually get refused a dance from the teacher/demo; or were the teachers just not asking punters to dance? I know that there are many dancers who would find it intimidating to dance with a teacher, and maybe these teachers are sensitive to that problem and tending not to ask. I am not saying that this attitude is right or wrong, I am just trying to work out why our experiences of dance teachers at Ceroc venues are so wildly different.

Well done telling the franchisee how it is BTW.

No-one was refused, but then no-one asked.
It's intimidating enough for a newbie to ask a teacher, but if they have to leave the room to find the teacher and interrupt them chatting to the other staff, it just ain't gonna happen.

[Andy McGregor]

No-one was refused, but then no-one asked.
It's intimidating enough for a newbie to ask a teacher, but if they have to leave the room to find the teacher and interrupt them chatting to the other staff, it just ain't gonna happen.

The more I think about this the more I realise that it could be down to briefing. It seems to me that one group under one franchise holder is fairly consistent in the way its teachers behave. I mostly see Ceroc Kent and Ceroc Surrey and the teachers at both seem to do what they like. And, it seems, they don't like to dance with beginners. However, if they were told that it was a part of their job as a teacher ...

[StokeBloke]

It's intimidating enough for a newbie to ask a teacher, but if they have to leave the room to find the teacher and interrupt them chatting to the other staff, it just ain't gonna happen.

It's never stopped me

[Gav]

It's never stopped me

nor me (recently), but I suspect you're also not as shy as the average punter

[bigdjiver]

One of the problems for teachers that "work the floor" is that they show that they are approachable, and as a result get approached. Over time they find that they get surrounded by a gaggle of people that want to talk to them, and it is very difficult to break out of that and dance.

[Andy McGregor]

One of the problems for teachers that "work the floor" is that they show that they are approachable, and as a result get approached. Over time they find that they get surrounded by a gaggle of people that want to talk to them, and it is very difficult to break out of that and dance.

As a teacher who works the floor I never have a problem with this. I am always on my way to my next partner. If somebody stops me for a chat about something I tell them I'm currently dancing with beginners and ask them to have a word with the door person or venue manager or see me at the end of the night. As the teacher I see my job on the night as tuition. I'm not there to socialise. I have a job to do and it's to teach people how to dance - I can't do that if I'm chatting with the DJ.

[Trouble]

As a teacher who works the floor I never have a problem with this. I am always on my way to my next partner. If somebody stops me for a chat about something I tell them I'm currently dancing with beginners and ask them to have a word with the door person or venue manager or see me at the end of the night. As the teacher I see my job on the night as tuition. I'm not there to socialise. I have a job to do and it's to teach people how to dance - I can't do that if I'm chatting with the DJ.

thats because your a little angel when you teach and a little devil on the floor.

[stewart38]

Just a quick question Gav. Did any of these dancers actually get refused a dance from the teacher/demo; or were the teachers just not asking punters to dance? I know that there are many dancers who would find it intimidating to dance with a teacher, and maybe these teachers are sensitive to that problem and tending not to ask. I am not saying that this attitude is right or wrong, I am just trying to work out why our experiences of dance teachers at Ceroc venues are so wildly different.

Well done telling the franchisee how it is BTW.

The few ceroc venues I attend, very rarely do the teachers dance with the punters

Maybe one or two at the end if the teachers are still around and individuals asks

[Rocky]

As a teacher who works the floor I never have a problem with this. I am always on my way to my next partner. If somebody stops me for a chat about something I tell them I'm currently dancing with beginners and ask them to have a word with the door person or venue manager or see me at the end of the night. As the teacher I see my job on the night as tuition. I'm not there to socialise. I have a job to do and it's to teach people how to dance - I can't do that if I'm chatting with the DJ.

I personally believe that it is AS important to socialise with your customers as it is to dance with them. There's a fine line of course, but the best teachers IMO dance regularly, are approachable and also take the time to get to know new faces as well as to still socialise with their regulars.

[MartinHarper]

Speaking as a teacher, it's obvious that in classes, a lot of people aren't really there to learn. I taught one class recently, where I tried to focus on leading the move. It was quite challenging, and not many of the guys really got it during the class, so, as usual, I said that if anyone wanted to go over it after the class, I'd be more than happy to help. The only 2 people who came to try to work on improving the lead, were 2 ladies!

The only reason you can make that offer is because your students know that your time is valuable and therefore don't take your time after class unless they particularly want to learn the move, and don't think they can get there without your help.

[Swinging bee]

Ceroc's aggressive marketing has made few friends with the independents, many who are personal friends,..in fact nobody likes to utter the "C" word !
Bit like "Hamlet"

[Rocky]

Ceroc's aggressive marketing has made few friends with the independents, many who are personal friends,..in fact nobody likes to utter the "C" word !
Bit like "Hamlet"

I think you mean Mac.... 'The Scottish Play' don't you?

There is a 'C' word I use but it's got 4 letters rather than the 5... and I'm afraid I utter it fairly frequently.

[Chef]

Ceroc's aggressive marketing has made few friends with the independents, many who are personal friends,..in fact nobody likes to utter the "C" word !
Bit like "Hamlet"

I have not seen any evidence that Ceroc are TRYING to make friends with independants except a few that have skills they want when they become "Ceroc associates" and end up doing workshops or guest teacher spots.

A number of independants that I know do try to keep friendly or at least civil relationships with each other but even that breaks down sometimes (thinking of Brighton here).

Make no mistake. Ceroc is a business and sometimes it gets tough out there. It might be just a bit hopeful that competitors in business can be friends as well. Nice if it happens not not something one can expect.