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Staff Meeting at TheLinguist, December 2004, Part 3

Part 3

Steve: I'm going to approach BCIT, with regard to seeing if we can get some broadcast journalist people, if they can do sort of a portrait of BCIT. Talk to professors, talk to students, talk about all the different subjects. I'm going to do the same thing with Nate, because we'll get two different collections. We're also talking to some high school kids about possibly getting something out of there. So those are some of the things. Home Hardware here locally said that we could interview them in the New Year, so we can go down there. So those are some of the things-I guess one of the unfortunate things is that we don't get a lot of structured feedback on what people want. It's very easy to get one person who says, "I want this," maybe nobody else is interested in that. So, I guess that's a bit of an issue. One question: What do you think, David and Jill, that you could do in terms of sales right now? If you just brainstorm, who would you go to? How do we sell? Sell trainers on, get individual students on. If we're talking in the broadest possible sense on marketing activity-I mean, you are both involved in sales when you are on the voice chat, and you are in sales once we get someone there. Mark: Any form of communication we have with our learners is an opportunity to sell, whether they're active users, or people just inquiring, or people-either we want to make sure they stay on, we'd like them to upgrade to a higher service level, whatever the case may be. If we provide good service to them and they are happy with their experience, then they're going to tell their friends. Anything that we do, where we interact with our learners, you're in effect salespeople. Steve: Should we set up this marketing at The Linguist as a group? Because I'm in touch now with the Bank of Montreal, I'm going to be in touch with the Rotary, with other people, I'm going to be approaching all these different sort of institutions, whether they be corporations or government institutions, and as things come along, I certainly want Jill to be on top of it, because if I'm traveling, or whatever, you should be aware if we have to follow up, if we have to send them documentation. We should all be thinking about how we can best work with these people and get them on. So if we're all thinking, we'll come up with good ideas. Mark: And I think it's just better for everyone to be in the loop. It makes everyone feel a part of it and understand what's happening, and it's just better if everybody knows what everybody else is doing, and can help us build some momentum. David: We had that little get-together, that dinner that went over quite well. I don't know what happened afterward about it, I just know the hearsay. Steve: The Chinese dinner?

David: Yeah. The notion that we're physically here for them, that we're with them, that we're talking with them-I know there's the nature of the independence, working on their own-but the fact that we're around them, with them, seeing them occasionally. We've talked about this before, you know, going out for coffee with them or something like that, but if there were something arranged where there was a meeting of some kind, that wouldn't be a huge burden, that would be once every two weeks, or once-a dinner. Steve: David, why don't you and Jill become a committee of two, and come up with our social program, whether it be dinners, or we can go hiking, or we can do any number of things, and we don't have to commit to a tremendous frequency. Once a month might be enough, you know, or it can even be irregular, it doesn't have to be-the trouble is to get into something, "Oh gee, once again we've got to do this." If we have it on an irregular basis, I think people would enjoy it. It's just a matter of how we structure it. We obviously have to get a commitment ahead of time from people, but I think that's a very good idea, David. If you could take the lead on that.

Mark: The other thing too, is our discussions right now are all online, but we certainly could have face-to-face discussions, if we had enough people that wanted to do it. If it involves us having to drive somewhere to meet them though, we'd want to make sure that we got five people we're meeting. We can't be doing a one-on-one. Maybe that's something for the future, but it's something to consider, and we could publicize. I guess if we're going to publicize, and have a special event and get people together, we might as well do something like have dinner, as opposed to just getting together for an hour of discussion. Steve: Certainly we could meet in places like cafes, or whatever, which again makes me think one thing you could do, for example-David or Jill, near where you live, put an ad somewhere and say here you are, you're offering a tutorial in English using this revolutionary new system in the sort of Delta-White Rock area, and you're available-in fact, your hours are quite flexible, because you could go there first thing in the morning. If these are housewives, for example. I know in the Sunshine Hills, we're aware there's a large immigrant community, a lot of them are somewhat better off, and I think the housewives would be quite interested in having a little coffee, a party or whatever, and work on their English. So these are some of the things, you know? It reminds me, for example, we had this one person who is from Spain and who wants to teach English. I'm thinking maybe we could send people to different markets, to develop the corporate market there, on our behalf, as long as they are fully trained on our system. To get that model going, perhaps we begin with Jill and David as our trainers here, approaching-I don't know who, how would you develop a customer base here? That's just a thought. You'd have to factor in your own costs, obviously, in terms of providing the face-to-face tutoring once a week, or even once every two weeks. But because it's on our system, therefore they get a much more effective-the whole learning process is much more effective than if it's just relying on that once-a-week or once-every-two-week encounter with a tutor. So when I say we look at the broadest sense of how do we market now, and I think the idea of trying to get training people on our system, and having them become trainers, and people who can develop markets for us. Initially, locally here, and then in other countries.


Part 3

Steve: I'm going to approach BCIT, with regard to seeing if we can get some broadcast journalist people, if they can do sort of a portrait of BCIT. Talk to professors, talk to students, talk about all the different subjects. I'm going to do the same thing with Nate, because we'll get two different collections. We're also talking to some high school kids about possibly getting something out of there. So those are some of the things. Home Hardware here locally said that we could interview them in the New Year, so we can go down there. So those are some of the things-I guess one of the unfortunate things is that we don't get a lot of structured feedback on what people want. It's very easy to get one person who says, "I want this," maybe nobody else is interested in that. So, I guess that's a bit of an issue. One question: What do you think, David and Jill, that you could do in terms of sales right now? If you just brainstorm, who would you go to? How do we sell? Sell trainers on, get individual students on. If we're talking in the broadest possible sense on marketing activity-I mean, you are both involved in sales when you are on the voice chat, and you are in sales once we get someone there. Mark: Any form of communication we have with our learners is an opportunity to sell, whether they're active users, or people just inquiring, or people-either we want to make sure they stay on, we'd like them to upgrade to a higher service level, whatever the case may be. If we provide good service to them and they are happy with their experience, then they're going to tell their friends. Anything that we do, where we interact with our learners, you're in effect salespeople. Steve: Should we set up this marketing at The Linguist as a group? Because I'm in touch now with the Bank of Montreal, I'm going to be in touch with the Rotary, with other people, I'm going to be approaching all these different sort of institutions, whether they be corporations or government institutions, and as things come along, I certainly want Jill to be on top of it, because if I'm traveling, or whatever, you should be aware if we have to follow up, if we have to send them documentation. We should all be thinking about how we can best work with these people and get them on. So if we're all thinking, we'll come up with good ideas. Mark: And I think it's just better for everyone to be in the loop. It makes everyone feel a part of it and understand what's happening, and it's just better if everybody knows what everybody else is doing, and can help us build some momentum. David: We had that little get-together, that dinner that went over quite well. I don't know what happened afterward about it, I just know the hearsay. Steve: The Chinese dinner?

David: Yeah. The notion that we're physically here for them, that we're with them, that we're talking with them-I know there's the nature of the independence, working on their own-but the fact that we're around them, with them, seeing them occasionally. We've talked about this before, you know, going out for coffee with them or something like that, but if there were something arranged where there was a meeting of some kind, that wouldn't be a huge burden, that would be once every two weeks, or once-a dinner. Steve: David, why don't you and Jill become a committee of two, and come up with our social program, whether it be dinners, or we can go hiking, or we can do any number of things, and we don't have to commit to a tremendous frequency. Once a month might be enough, you know, or it can even be irregular, it doesn't have to be-the trouble is to get into something, "Oh gee, once again we've got to do this." If we have it on an irregular basis, I think people would enjoy it. It's just a matter of how we structure it. We obviously have to get a commitment ahead of time from people, but I think that's a very good idea, David. If you could take the lead on that.

Mark: The other thing too, is our discussions right now are all online, but we certainly could have face-to-face discussions, if we had enough people that wanted to do it. If it involves us having to drive somewhere to meet them though, we'd want to make sure that we got five people we're meeting. We can't be doing a one-on-one. Maybe that's something for the future, but it's something to consider, and we could publicize. I guess if we're going to publicize, and have a special event and get people together, we might as well do something like have dinner, as opposed to just getting together for an hour of discussion. Steve: Certainly we could meet in places like cafes, or whatever, which again makes me think one thing you could do, for example-David or Jill, near where you live, put an ad somewhere and say here you are, you're offering a tutorial in English using this revolutionary new system in the sort of Delta-White Rock area, and you're available-in fact, your hours are quite flexible, because you could go there first thing in the morning. If these are housewives, for example. I know in the Sunshine Hills, we're aware there's a large immigrant community, a lot of them are somewhat better off, and I think the housewives would be quite interested in having a little coffee, a party or whatever, and work on their English. So these are some of the things, you know? It reminds me, for example, we had this one person who is from Spain and who wants to teach English. I'm thinking maybe we could send people to different markets, to develop the corporate market there, on our behalf, as long as they are fully trained on our system. To get that model going, perhaps we begin with Jill and David as our trainers here, approaching-I don't know who, how would you develop a customer base here? That's just a thought. You'd have to factor in your own costs, obviously, in terms of providing the face-to-face tutoring once a week, or even once every two weeks. But because it's on our system, therefore they get a much more effective-the whole learning process is much more effective than if it's just relying on that once-a-week or once-every-two-week encounter with a tutor. So when I say we look at the broadest sense of how do we market now, and I think the idea of trying to get training people on our system, and having them become trainers, and people who can develop markets for us. Initially, locally here, and then in other countries.