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Thread: Ceroc Domination Part IV

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Rocky View Post
    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.
    I believe this is the case at freestyles. But I think the priority at a dance class is to teach people how to dance. If people wanted to socialise and nothing else they'd go to the pub or to speed dating. And, as the teacher, it is my priority to ensure that people learn to dance. They can always socialise with each other, but they can't really teach each other how to dance. And, even if they can teach people to dance, why should they? They've paid to come in, the last thing they should be expected to do is to start working as teachers.

    I do think it's different for Rocky. As far as I know he doesn't teach a weekly dance class where there's a regular intake of beginners. His 'Utopia' customers are usually good dancers. My guess is that the teaching commitment ends with the end of the lesson. At a weekly dance class my commitment to teaching ends when the last student leaves the venue - I regularly get asked teaching questions after the music stops!

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    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.

    My advice to you (you started it) is to stay on-topic when posting.#

    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.#

    You are obviously intelligent, please apply that intelligence to ensuring that your facts are correct and that you stay on-topic.

    Oh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I beg your pardon. The fact that I am new to posting and put your name at the top of the post out of politeness suggests to you that I am not a dancer/punter but some dark character blindly defending Ceroc. I see your logic perfectly. Errr... Sorry to disappoint you, i really am just a dancer.

    I may have missed your original point and the freshly revealed fact that you are talking specifically about Ceroc Kent. In my naive post, i was referring to the fact that you do not mention the percentage of teachers from other organisations that do not work the floor. To my simple mind, that would be a direct comparison.

    You have now explained that you are sending your dancers to other venues. If I understand you rightly, your dancers will get poor coaching, a bad experience/get worse for attending Ceroc Kent. This might put off a couple but as we know, dancers do not die, they just drift around they should all flock back to you.

    If Ceroc Kent are that bad, this hardly comes under Ceroc Domination. Oops you are off topic.

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Raul View Post
    Oh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I beg your pardon. The fact that I am new to posting and put your name at the top of the post out of politeness suggests to you that I am not a dancer/punter but some dark character blindly defending Ceroc. I see your logic perfectly. Errr... Sorry to disappoint you, i really am just a dancer.
    You are still corresponding with me. That correspondence is person to person. That you choose to air your thoughts to the general population means that you have a point to make. That is what I said.

    And Raul is not new. He joined in Oct 05

    Quote Originally Posted by Raul View Post
    I may have missed your original point and the freshly revealed fact that you are talking specifically about Ceroc Kent. In my naive post, i was referring to the fact that you do not mention the percentage of teachers from other organisations that do not work the floor. To my simple mind, that would be a direct comparison.
    I do not mention others. I mentioned Ceroc because that is the subject of the thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Raul View Post
    If Ceroc Kent are that bad, this hardly comes under Ceroc Domination. Oops you are off topic.
    In my opinion Ceroc Kent are trying to dominate the market in the area of their franchise. That is the subject of this thread and that is what I'm talking about. Does Raul have anything to add. Does he know what has been going on in Kent? Does he have any evidence that I am wrong? Because if he has, he hasn't mentioned it on here.

    What Raul is contributing to the debate is naught but criticism and blind belief that Ceroc are faultless, even in the light of comments from others that they have seen the same as me. He has decided to disagree with me for reasons of his own and all he has done is raise the temperature of the debate without contributing anything new to it. He has got his facts wrong, his defence is that he is new to the Forum - his is not! The month and year he joined the Forum is printed to the left of each and every post he makes. If he can't get a simple, and staring you in the face, fact like his length of membership correct, how are we expected to take his other pronouncements?

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Rocky View Post
    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.
    What comes across to the dancers is whether the teachers are approachable or not. Each teacher has a different personal style, the most dedicated will try to remember everyone's name and dance with all the new faces, others will dance with every woman in the room, others with people thay have not danced with the previous time. At the very least the teacher will say hi or smile to everyone making eye contact and exchange a few words if possible. Whatever, but the whole point of these exercises is to build genuine rapport with the dancers. Most dancers will be sensible enough to respect this and not abuse the openness. And in many places there is enough support staff to teaching newbies, and the teachers can have just a few dances at random, whatever their level.

    You do not have to be a genius to work out whether a teacher is approachable or not. It is a simple social skill.

    .

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    I should have know better than to argue logically with someone who could start a fight in an empty house.

    A person who has "experience" and therefore knows! No one is allowed to maintain an impartial position, they are blindly defending Ceroc. They have their facts wrong.

    I was wondering why i did not bother to post before. What a reminder!

    .

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    .... and so back on thread...

    I'm curious that there hasn't been more focus on Ceroc's marketing/PR efforts. They have a real 'Brand' (something not achieved by any independant group) ... and have managed to get a fair amount of national coverage. People genrally talk about "Ceroc", NOT "Modern Jive" .... YET they have still failed to crack the market. Even Phil Roberts, the Franchisee supremeo, doesn't seemd to have expanded his empire much over the last couple of yaers.

    Many of the independants who set up to target new beginners fail because they fail to understand the basics of marketing. A noticable exception in our region is Hot Roc ... and that could well be because the owner runs a marketing business . Other dance businesses in our region primarily exist by taking dancers from other dance clubs ... not exactly pushing the boundary of MJ

    So ... if Ceroc is to expand in attraction more virgins to the party, and not just takimng out the opposition, what does it need to do differently/better?

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    .... and so back on thread...

    I'm curious that there hasn't been more focus on Ceroc's marketing/PR efforts. They have a real 'Brand' (something not achieved by any independant group) ... and have managed to get a fair amount of national coverage. People genrally talk about "Ceroc", NOT "Modern Jive" .... YET they have still failed to crack the market. Even Phil Roberts, the Franchisee supremeo, doesn't seemd to have expanded his empire much over the last couple of yaers.

    Many of the independants who set up to target new beginners fail because they fail to understand the basics of marketing. A noticable exception in our region is Hot Roc ... and that could well be because the owner runs a marketing business . Other dance businesses in our region primarily exist by taking dancers from other dance clubs ... not exactly pushing the boundary of MJ

    So ... if Ceroc is to expand in attraction more virgins to the party, and not just takimng out the opposition, what does it need to do differently/better?
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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Gav View Post
    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
    I assume you are talking about Ceroc in Norwich Gav.
    I only went to their classes on the odd occasion-I worked for the independant- but I found that the teachers and some of the crew,not the taxis,didnt seem to want to know to much about the beginners or anyone for that matter except the obvious fan club.

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by djtrev View Post
    I assume you are talking about Ceroc in Norwich Gav.
    I#d say that that comment could apply to 90% of MJ clubs, not just Ceroc. This was a real feature in the North West for a number of years, with Teachers just dancing with their hareems (and that comment is closer to the truth than you'd like to believe). Its not universal, but even in Ceroc Central region, there are some noticeable differences between the clubs.

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    I do think it's different for Rocky. As far as I know he doesn't teach a weekly dance class where there's a regular intake of beginners. His 'Utopia' customers are usually good dancers. My guess is that the teaching commitment ends with the end of the lesson. At a weekly dance class my commitment to teaching ends when the last student leaves the venue - I regularly get asked teaching questions after the music stops!
    Actually as well as running Utopia Andy, Val and I run a weekly Ceroc night at Twickenham on a Monday and have done for the last 5 years. In that time we have built the venue from around 50 people to a regular 160-180 and we have on average 3-10 brand new beginners every week.

    Val always dance and socialises with our customers to the point in fact where she often addresses people by name as they join the class. Up until recently I also danced after or classes and used my own freestyle CDs, but I now DJ as my music seems to draw more people to the venue than my dancing!

    As regards Utopia, it is more difficult for us to target 'beginners' to help as we know so many people and tend to go from dance to dance. However, I do in between, look for the new nervous faces at the edge to encourage along.

    We also cover teach a fair bit and on these occasions we always stay and dance in freestyle unless my back is playing up or we are a long way from home (even then we'll at least stay dancing for an hour or so).

    I think as a teaching partnership we have a little more flexibility as there are two us to go around. I actually think the most important part of a venue is consistancy of staff and teachers (as long as all concerned don't take their responsibilities for granted). At Twickers we have had the same teachers, DJ, door staff and taxi dancers for the last 5 years and I think people really like that because it's a bit like 'coming home'.

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    What Raul is contributing to the debate is naught but criticism and blind belief that Ceroc are faultless, even in the light of comments from others that they have seen the same as me. He has decided to disagree with me for reasons of his own and all he has done is raise the temperature of the debate without contributing anything new to it. He has got his facts wrong, his defence is that he is new to the Forum - his is not! The month and year he joined the Forum is printed to the left of each and every post he makes. If he can't get a simple, and staring you in the face, fact like his length of membership correct, how are we expected to take his other pronouncements?
    Raul does not come across to me as being pro Ceroc, or as you put it Andy as having 'a blind belief that Ceroc are faultless'.

    He's just pointing out that you are coming across, in his opinion, as anti Ceroc - there is a difference.

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Rocky View Post
    Actually as well as running Utopia Andy, Val and I run a weekly Ceroc night at Twickenham on a Monday and have done for the last 5 years. In that time we have built the venue from around 50 people to a regular 160-180 and we have on average 3-10 brand new beginners every week.

    Val always dance and socialises with our customers to the point in fact where she often addresses people by name as they join the class. Up until recently I also danced after or classes and used my own freestyle CDs, but I now DJ as my music seems to draw more people to the venue than my dancing!

    As regards Utopia, it is more difficult for us to target 'beginners' to help as we know so many people and tend to go from dance to dance. However, I do in between, look for the new nervous faces at the edge to encourage along.

    We also cover teach a fair bit and on these occasions we always stay and dance in freestyle unless my back is playing up or we are a long way from home (even then we'll at least stay dancing for an hour or so).

    I think as a teaching partnership we have a little more flexibility as there are two us to go around. I actually think the most important part of a venue is consistancy of staff and teachers (as long as all concerned don't take their responsibilities for granted). At Twickers we have had the same teachers, DJ, door staff and taxi dancers for the last 5 years and I think people really like that because it's a bit like 'coming home'.


    It sounds to me like Rocky and Val are fab in the way they work classes (although I was right that Rocky doesn't teach as Val is the CTA trained teacher) - an example to the whole of Ceroc! And I believe that his success is all about the quality of his product. On a personal note, I think that Val and Rocky are both fab. Of course, it it difficult to totally admire somebody who is younger, fitter and better looking than you are - at least I'm more sexy

    If only it were the case that the whole of Ceroc was attempting to dominate the UK Market by having a better quality product. You know what they say about a better moustrap. But, as has been said on here, and not just by me, Ceroc in some areas are delivering a lesser product than Rocky and Val's - they seem to be using other tactics to ensure that the competition are eliminated. And that, members if the jury, is what I, and other independents, have a problem with

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post


    It sounds to me like Rocky and Val are fab in the way they work classes (although I was right that Rocky doesn't teach as Val is the CTA trained teacher) - an example to the whole of Ceroc! And I believe that his success is all about the quality of his product. On a personal note, I think that Val and Rocky are both fab. Of course, it it difficult to totally admire somebody who is younger, fitter and better looking than you are - at least I'm more sexy

    If only it were the case that the whole of Ceroc was attempting to dominate the UK Market by having a better quality product. You know what they say about a better moustrap. But, as has been said on here, and not just by me, Ceroc in some areas are delivering a lesser product than Rocky and Val's - they seem to be using other tactics to ensure that the competition are eliminated. And that, members if the jury, is what I, and other independents, have a problem with
    I agree Andy (but I think the jury is still out on the subject of whether or not you're sexier... ) You're also right in that I don't teach in the weekly classes because I considered it important for Val to have control at sometime in our relationship - and it's generally quite easy to deal with when she's on stage... I do however always teach in conjunction with her on workshops and on weekenders, although I know she often regrets letting me loose on the mic! - You've seen what I can be like on the forum, imagine that live with no pause or edit button....

    I also know you're not anti Ceroc but more anti bad teaching and tactics, which to be fair a lot of the MJ scene suffers from. I also know that you have actively promoted Jo's Brighton venue and it is appreciated.

    I also agree that the best way to control the market is by purely offering the best product rather than just trying to put everyone else out of business - and I, like you, abhore spoiling tactics, no matter who perpetrates them. However, it's easy to understand how people who have run an area or a venue for a long time can get complacent and jaded. Then when competition starts up to offer an alternative, it's then easy to understand how the problem can escalate - I'm certainly not condoning it, just explaining the causes.

    In Ceroc's defence they have implemented a program of 'mystery shoppers' of late to try to nip these problems in the bud - so hopefully we should all start to notice improvements in the areas you have highlighted.

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Rocky View Post
    (but I think the jury is still out on the subject of whether or not you're sexier... )
    Haven't you heard of jury rigging?

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    Haven't you heard of jury rigging?
    I've seen you dance young man... I think you mean 'frigging' rather than 'rigging' don't you??

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    Many of the independants who set up to target new beginners fail because they fail to understand the basics of marketing. A noticable exception in our region is Hot Roc ... and that could well be because the owner runs a marketing business .
    Hate quoting myslef ... but a PM on two generated by my comment above requires me to clarify. I'm NOT having a go at independants .... I am one for god sake. The point I was trying to make (badly as usual) is that people coming flying into the dance world because they see a succesfull club and decide they want a piece of it (see Bright-nam for a good example). However, they rarely see all the hard work, dissapointment and failure that goes with it. This can apply as much to a Ceroc franchisee as to any independant. Some independants seem to be doing really well (Andy's Rocsters for example) whereas some Ceroc franchisees seem to be suffering ... Ceroc Stoke.

    I was wondering to what extent new clubs are openning in undiscovered territories and to what extent clubs are openning looking to 'benefit' form an established dance population. No prizes for guessing which one is easier ... at least initially.

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Rocky View Post
    I also agree that the best way to control the market is by purely offering the best product rather than just trying to put everyone else out of business - and I, like you, abhore spoiling tactics, no matter who perpetrates them. However, it's easy to understand how people who have run an area or a venue for a long time can get complacent and jaded. Then when competition starts up to offer an alternative, it's then easy to understand how the problem can escalate - I'm certainly not condoning it, just explaining the causes.
    Ceroc are not the worst case I've come across. That one was actually personal. Just after we started classes, the biggest organiser in Worthing sent out an email deriding our classes, promotional efforts, teaching, dancing, etc, etc. Worst of all, he accused my wife, Sue, of being his stalker and walking up and down outside this chaps flat spying on him!

    Legal advice was taken. It cost me £109 to find out that it would have cost this organiser in to order of £15,000. I took the view that I was better of pushing my dance classes forward rather than get involved in court action. This organiser has continued to bad-mouth us, but never again in writing.

    I can't help it, but the words "best served cold" keep running through my mind ...

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Rocky View Post
    I've seen you dance young man... I think you mean 'frigging' rather than 'rigging' don't you??
    I like the "young" bit

    Don't you mean "frotting"?

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    I was wondering to what extent new clubs are openning in undiscovered territories and to what extent clubs are openning looking to 'benefit' form an established dance population. No prizes for guessing which one is easier ... at least initially.
    In my experience, new nights do not benefit that much from an established dance population. Each time we've opened a new night we've, yet again, started at ground zero. We've gone back to low numbers, a room with mainly beginners and crew and hard, hard work.

    For example, we have a new venue in Portslade on a Wednesday and an established venue less than 5 miles down the road on Thursday. Last Wednesday we had about 20 at Portslade and the following day we had 150 at Shoreham. There is little or no cross-over in dancers. Each venue has its own dancers and we've had to recruit and train almost every one of them - it's been hard work, but it's also a constant source of joy!

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    Re: Ceroc Domination Part IV

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    I can't help it, but the words "best served cold" keep running through my mind ...
    It also applies to custard and some pastas too...

    For the record, you did the right thing. Negative actions like legal cases can consume you: you are far better to rise above it as you've done. Your reward will come in bunny heaven where the carrots and accolades will be plentiful.

    I'm also guessing that you were on dangerous ground as that was actually you outside his flat with your wifes dress on and high heels, wasn't it????
    Last edited by Rocky; 5th-May-2007 at 04:32 PM.

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