Mentoring with Ali

Business mentoring with Ali

My “Why”
Before dancing, I was an Alzheimer’s researcher. There, I became fascinated by the concept of “Enriched Environments.” Studies on rodents showed that intensely stimulating experiences and environments significantly regenerated neurons, helping prevent dementia and depression. This idea completely captivated me, so I quit my research path and dedicated the rest of my life to creating “Enriched Environments” for others through dance.

For 20 years, I’ve been teaching, organizing workshops, and running dance schools in multiple cities. Through it all, I always thought: how can I help more people experience Enriched Environments on a weekly basis?

It was clear to me that I didn’t want to—nor could I—do this work alone. This is how the SwingStep team was born. For 15 years, we ran the schools together with at time 15+ full-time team members and created iconic festivals like Chase Festival in Heidelberg, SwingSummit in France, and Cirque du Solo in Berlin.

I also had the opportunity to support seven other dance professionals through residency programs and teacher training programs in 40 cities around the world.

While I’m currently building a startup to help event creators make their work more effective, a rare opportunity has opened up for me to mentor business owners through this mentorship program.

It would be my pleasure to learn about your business, provide an outside perspective, and support you in creating more Enriched Environments for others.

Full Testimonial By Marty Nelson

Before starting the Mentoring with Ali I was feeling lost and quite alone, I didn’t have any real direction and was just using the same tried and tested techniques and business formulas I’ve used since day one. 10 years into the business and I felt like I was losing lots of students and found it hard to get them through the door in the first place! Not having someone who could really understand and relate to my personal challenges of running a school, dealing with people’s issues, and improving my personal relationships started to really weigh on me. 

Here are just a few of the things we worked on in the past two months that I would not have dealt with on my own: 

1. Taking an inventory of my relationships and developing concrete strategies to improve how I engage with the people in my life. 
2. Creating a comprehensive business dashboard to look at my retention rates.
3. Zooming out to gain perspective on the school and the bigger picture to develop strategies and action steps toward my goals. 

What helped me a lot was that Ali does not just point from the sideline. When needed, he got his hands dirty in the process and acted as a catalyst for change. 

1. He helped with sourcing my data and built a tailored dashboard. 
2. He helped drawing out decisions that needed to be made and we workshopped them together so that I could make quick and, importantly, guilt-free decisions.
3. We explored my values to make sure they are present in our decisions.  

I now look forward to our one-on-one meeting so much, and its the highlight of my week. Having this platform to work on the school and sometimes just someone to vent to who can relate has made all the difference.

Full Testimonial By Sebastian Hivy

Ali and I have been working together in various capacities for over a year, so I was already familiar with his skills and experience before starting the coaching program. Initially, I hesitated to commit to a full mentoring program because I couldn’t imagine how multifaceted and comprehensive the guidance would be. I also thought I already knew what was needed for the growth of my dance school. However, working together revealed entirely new perspectives that I would not have discovered on my own:

Course concepts, marketing strategies, communication, internal processes, and community building – these are just a few of the areas where I was able to learn a great deal in a short period of time. Since I am a big fan of the SwingStep dance school, we were able to save time by building on many of their existing frameworks rather than reinventing the wheel. I am grateful to benefit from their extensive experience and body of work.

As an entrepreneur, I am a one-man show. The demands of running a business can feel overwhelming. That’s why it was fantastic that Ali’s first step was to take work off my plate, giving me the space and energy to tackle challenges gradually.

Over the past three months, during which we implemented his program, we made significant progress in several areas:
• Setting up my financial and performance dashboards so I can clearly see what’s going on financially and make informed business decisions.
• Introducing multiple concepts and strategies to build a stronger community, encouraging people to stay with us longer.
• Improving my teaching strategies and techniques to create better experiences for both my students and myself in class.
• Identifying and optimizing inefficient workflows to prevent wasting valuable energy on recurring tasks.

Today, the most important result is that I have much more control. I now have control over my finances and my ability to grow the business. This sense of control fosters a positive mindset and gives me the strength to make my dance school more successful.