Monthly Archives: January 2015

Comings & Goings

Marketing Consultant Susan Smith will be teaching marketing calls, free to you as a SATYA Member, throughout 2015. Over the past several years, your marketing course sessions were offered by a marketing panel, giving you a variety of perspectives on using a range of marketing approaches for your yoga business. We have now engaged Susan Smith to serve as your sole marketing teacher. This course is a continuing benefit, provided by your SATYA dues. Susan comes to us with a love of teaching as well as longstanding marketing expertise.

In her corporate marketing position, Susan taught weekly marketing classes for colleagues in other business roles. You can count on her knowing how to meet us, as her new students, “where we are” and to take us “where we need to go” to grow our yoga businesses. Susan knows how to lead enjoyable as well as highly informative group learning experiences, and she enthusiastically looks forward to teaching from her consistent, progressive marketing curriculum. Each phone session will be a complete, standalone unit yet also linked to previous and future sessions for continuity.  Susan will share her far-reaching understanding of the secrets of marketing.

Have you been curious about what marketing approaches really work? Susan not only knows the answers, she will teach us how to identify what really works in our own locales and demographics as well as for Svaroopa® yoga specifically. She is a 20-year veteran of business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing, with a specialty in developing membership and loyalty programs for major retail companies. So Susan knows how to shape marketing to resonate with the experience of a range of target customers.

Susan’s class plans include practical marketing advice and information — from strategy to application. Among other things, you will learn how to:

  • Identify the “right marketing” for your demographic, e.g., flyers, website, social media
  • Use the social media tools (e.g., Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc.) with the best fit to get the word out about your yoga business
  • Test your marketing tactics — measure results to know works best
  • Calculate your return on investment, to identify the benefits reaped
  • Decide when to cut your losses, if a tactic is not working
  • Revise a “marketing product” (such as a flyer or your website) to work more effectively
  • Communicate via email campaigns with class “drop-outs” to bring them back

In short, Susan says, “I hope participants in this marketing course come away with an understanding of the options available, and how to use them.”

Just as in the past, you attend this distance-learning course via conference calls, for which you enroll via www.svaroopa.org. You may participate in every session of Susan’s comprehensive marketing curriculum, which she will herself teach, or select one or more individual topics at your convenience.  Swami Nirmalananda says, “You’ll soon discover that marketing is another form of yoga – a way to communicate the teachings and experience of the Self.”

Packing for India by Sheynapurna Peace

India_ Sheynapurna 2Swamiji says to put all you want to take, including money, on your bed.  Remove half the clothes and double your money.  I absolutely agree.

In 2013, my suitcases were full, heavy and packed with “essentials.”  I didn’t use half my essentials, and couldn’t even find several items until back home.  Here’s my abbreviated list. It contains only what I found to be truly needed:

-2 pairs of loose cotton trousers
-2-3 tops
-6-12 undies
-as many bras (ladies) as you like
-2 warm pairs socks (if heading to cooler climes)
-1 light jacket
-2 dhupattas (scarves) to match tops or bottoms
-small container with toiletries – (e.g., shampoo, soap, skin lotions, and sunscreen; some bug repellant, to use until you can get some Odomos in India; toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss; hairbrush or comb as well as a small hand mirror and tweezers)
-maybe a pack of tissues.
-Small first aid kit with some band aids, antibiotic ointment, some aspirin or ibuprofen, and any prescriptions.
-Your supplements, if you think you’ll take them, and not a whole lot of them
-Sandals – especially inexpensive slide-ons
-Long underwear, if you’re heading north
-PJs  – remember it’s fairly warm in Ganeshpuri, so not your heavy ones
-Soap for washing clothes
-Meditation shawl/asana
-some small foods that won’t attract monkeys or rats- something you might not be able to get in India (Their chocolate is awful but ours might melt – ah, tapas; I’ll do without.)
-Females: sanitary protection for that time of month
-Stout lock/key with rounded hasp for your door
-Small powerful flashlight
-Small inflatable neck rest or pillow (good for meditation as well as plane)
-Noise canceling headphones (if airplane noise bothers you)
-3-6 medium/large sized safety pins (for sari pinning)
-Lip balm
-PASSPORT WITH STAMPED VISA
-MUST BRING YOUR E-TICKET RECEIPT or you won’t be allowed into the airport in India!
-Cash.  Some money can be changed in the Mumbai airport, if you feel the need.  Iqbal’s friend Shamin provides this service in Ganeshpuri.
-India adaptor. NOTE:  India electricity does not work with “universal” plug adaptors.  You can get an adaptor on Amazon.com good for India plugs.  But it is 220 volt, not 110.

Really, you won’t need much else.  I am hoping to use a carry-on size suitcase, and bring along a backpack or large purse-like bag that closes.  I want room in my case for presents to bring home – might even consider buying clothes to wear and then giving them to friends.

I do suggest you obtain and wear compression stockings on the long plane journeys.  Several people experienced swollen feet/ankles/lower legs on the 2013 India Yatra.  DVTs can be an issue as well; compression stockings will make your feet and legs more comfortable not only on the long plane right, but throughout the entire trip.

Bottom line: Don’t overburden yourself!