--- In [email protected], Rick Archer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Emailed to me on the side: > > Got a long voicemail from someone on the course. > > > Anyhoo...Turns out the whole thrust of this > 'recertification' seems to be marketing. > Within the next 2-3 months there will be 500 > storefronts in malls. Each one will have all the > MAPI and movement products, a largescreen TV with the > M channel, a children's corner, a spa, a TM center. > There's more I can't remember. > He wanted to know the 5 high end malls in the area. > They will hire 4 people working in each store plus a > manager. A man and woman from the course will be > supervising. AND GET THIS. MAHARISHI WILL BE PAYING > FOR EVERYTHING.
****************** If the TMO is looking for high-end malls, that means they're not going to do the cheap strip mall option, and they're going to pay through the nose, like $36/sq.ft (plus maybe another $10/sq.ft. for security, utilities, taxes, etc. -- http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/sct1103/ ): http://retailtrafficmag.com/mag/retail_bad_news_retailers/ In addition, renters at malls usually have to pay a percentage of sales, something I doubt the TMO is going to be happy about: http://retailtrafficmag.com/mag/retail_hot_topic_long/ In order to have a spa with separate facilities for men and women, plus a MAPI store, plus a TM center, it sounds like you would need about 2000 sq. ft. -- at $36/sq.ft. plus taxes etc, that's about $7500/month. Plus two TM teachers at $4K/month each, one manager at $5K/month, and 4 other employees at $3K/month, plus payroll taxes. Total for rent and salaries: about $40K/month (plus whatever the mall owners collect as percentage of TM store sales). Income from MAPI products sales could not amount to much -- many of the items are so overpriced (like honey at $50/lb.) or of little interest to the general public, so these sales won't amount to much, and if meditators start to shop for their MAPI products at these mall stores, it would be merely cannibalizing sales from the MAPI.com web site. The mall store will have to rely on the income from the spa and from TM instruction, shooting for one spa treatment a day at $645/day (taking this figure from The Raj's price list: http://www.theraj.com/rajoffers/panchakarma.html ). But the Raj has always lost money, even in a town with 2000 meditators, many of whom are rich and can afford these pricey treatments. And, outside of Fairfield, there are many other spas, even competing Ayurveda spas, that offer similar treatments, often at lower prices, and usually in more attractive surroundings than a tiny room in a mall. Initiating one person every day into TM every three days at $2500, in addition to the one per day for the spa treatment, would bring in enough money to break even ($645 x 30= $19350 plus $2500 x 10= $25000, for a total of $44350/month), and a handful of these mall stores may be able to meet these goals, which have to see a daily spa treatment and one initiation every 3 days indefinitely to stay solvent. But when you multiply the 500 proposed stores by these numbers for spa treatments and initiations, it amounts to 15,000 people a month in the USA seeking TM spa treatments -- a very unlikely figure -- and 5,000 people a month starting TM, a figure which has not been remotely approached since the wave of initiations in the 70s after the Merv Griffin shows (when 50,000/month were learning TM). And I don't see any reason why a different weighting of needed numbers -- more initiations into TM and fewer spa treatments, or vice versa -- could come up with a formula that could work for these mall stores, since there is just not much happening for the TM movement either in terms of people learning TM or buying Maharishi Ayurveda treatment. Even if MMY is planning on doing something spectacular, miraculous, to interest people in TM, these mall stores won't work with large crowds. You would want a warehouse or stadium to teach large numbers of people if somebody did actually levitate and end up on the evening news. I just don't see any scenario playing out that would justify this mall store plan. Somebody from Vedic City should call in a consultant from Booz Allen Hamilton or some other top consulting firm and bounce these ideas off somebody reasonable before they commit to long-term leases (which would probably be required since the spa would require extensive modification to the leased mall space that would not be suitable for many other applications) on a proposition that can't possibly work. Bob http://geocities.com/bbrigante/updates.html To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
