Any plans for opening new classes in California other parts of the US or out of the country?
Yes, we do have plans to open Professional Training Program classes in other cities. Right now, they all operate out of our Northampton, MA headquarters. We would like to start offering a minimum of 3 training programs per year, each in a different geographic location. When we build strong business in those, we can add more training locations. Right now, people travel from all over the country (and from other countries) to attend our trainings, but opening in new cities will certainly reach many more prospective students from different areas.
We are also very excited to operate Professional Trainings internationally. Some of the many places that we think would be very successful and strategic are Germany, France, England, and Poland. Germany in particular has a lot of interest in Somatics, and is even more enthusiastic than the US in their response to Somatics. We have had strong requests from physical therapists from Poland to train people there, and that market seems very receptive to it. We also have some direct research indicating strong interest in India. Of course, China is an obvious choice for almost any health business, and we are looking into starting there by launching a consumer exercise product there to begin building our market.
If you read the answers to your questions here about opening new clinics, you will see that we have plans to open clinics nationwide. One of the exciting things about Somatic Systems is that growth in each revenue division (Clinics, products, training) tends to promote growth of the other divisions, and expansion of our brick-and-mortar Clinics provides an important platform for our other divisions as well: Opening a clinic in Chicago or California, for example — two areas that are both great markets and geographically distinct from the New England where we train now — is a huge step towards launching a Professional Training there. It provides virtually all of the infrastructure we need, and it creates a foothold in that market, a powerful base of operations to recruit enrollment for a successful training.
You can also read the answers to your questions here about training class size and duration to learn more about our flexible training scheduling formats and how many different ways the training can be provided, as well as our plans for multiple classes.
