Sunday, September 24, 2006
Maximizing ESL Revenue, Part 3
This entry is the hardest for me to write. I mean, it goes most against my grain. As I sit here on a sunday afternoon, barefoot, in cargo shorts, wearing an old Grateful Dead T-shirt, I feel happy. There's nothing I like less than dressing up for _any_thing. Now I work at a "business casual" venue where lots of people wear blue jeans MTWRF, and I love it.
But. I do not go to work to be happy. And when I oh-so-slowly realized this in Taipei, I started watching my rates raise easily. And here's what I did. There is an inner and an outer and an inner component. Hold on and you will see what I mean.
Inside #1: On the inside, I set my target. In Taiwan, there are generally three venues which pay really, really well:
- Teaching children
- Teaching business professionals
- Teaching the affluent
For me, business professionals were the easiest to reach, and I set the corporate training world as my target. You might choose another, and I'll try to make my comments general enough to be useful to you, even if you teach children.
Once I knew this, I knew how to answer the other two.
Outside #1: I started dressing formally, or should I say, professionally. Oh, how I hated it! But I remembered what lawyers do. They practice in a sumptuous, expensive environment, so they look like the hundreds of hours an hour they charge you. That's what I did over a couple of months. I got a couple of formal suits (my wife was thrilled), some good shoes, retired my cheap-ass Casio watch, and got some very spiffy business cards made (English on one side, Chinese on the other). They said "language consultant". (If yours say "English teacher", throw them away and get new ones this week.) I got a leather bag, and retired my old-style glasses.
Key concept: If you look like an English teacher, people will treat and pay you like an English teacher, like the franchises do. On the other hand, if you look like a professional, a "language consultant", then that's how people will look at you and pay you. It's always your choice what you want for yourself.
Inside #2: After I had a market and I looked the part, I had to do more. I had to be accepted as a member of the club. Here's what I did. Every time I entered an office building, I looked at the front desk to see what newspapers and magazines were being delivered (lots of Asian Wall Street Journals, International Herald Tribunes, Fortunes, and very few China Posts, and no China News). I started reading them. Now I have to say, this also went against my grain, since I had gotten my BA and MA in comparative literature. But no one was going to pay me to talk about semiotics or post-modernism! So I learned the language and concepts of my target audience. For my Big Pharma clients, I learned about clinical trials and drug research and development. If you like to teach children, read up on childhood development and psychology, so you can communicate with parents and peers.
In short, when I learned a lot about the things my target clients cared about, they started to view me as a peer and not a commodity resource. In fact, when one of my clients merged with another, I was brought in to help the senior management team plan their presentations, questions, and communication strategy. Why? Because I was a management consultant, not an English teacher.
For clients like this, in the mid-late 90s, I chaged NT$1400-NT$1500 an hour, and simply submitted timesheets every two months. I set my rate. I raised it annually. Not one was ever challenged. Why? Because I created such value for them. In many cases I had helped them keep their high-level jobs.
When I started posting at Dave's ESL Cafe about my experience making money in Taiwan, some were skeptical, a couple frankly unbelieving. Quite understandably! But these are the basic principles I used. Nothing esoteric, nothing any of you could not do. But you have to have some ambition, tenacity, customer intimacy, and creativity, and not just wait for your school to give you a plate of students ever 8-12 weeks.
But. I do not go to work to be happy. And when I oh-so-slowly realized this in Taipei, I started watching my rates raise easily. And here's what I did. There is an inner and an outer and an inner component. Hold on and you will see what I mean.
Inside #1: On the inside, I set my target. In Taiwan, there are generally three venues which pay really, really well:
- Teaching children
- Teaching business professionals
- Teaching the affluent
For me, business professionals were the easiest to reach, and I set the corporate training world as my target. You might choose another, and I'll try to make my comments general enough to be useful to you, even if you teach children.
Once I knew this, I knew how to answer the other two.
Outside #1: I started dressing formally, or should I say, professionally. Oh, how I hated it! But I remembered what lawyers do. They practice in a sumptuous, expensive environment, so they look like the hundreds of hours an hour they charge you. That's what I did over a couple of months. I got a couple of formal suits (my wife was thrilled), some good shoes, retired my cheap-ass Casio watch, and got some very spiffy business cards made (English on one side, Chinese on the other). They said "language consultant". (If yours say "English teacher", throw them away and get new ones this week.) I got a leather bag, and retired my old-style glasses.
Key concept: If you look like an English teacher, people will treat and pay you like an English teacher, like the franchises do. On the other hand, if you look like a professional, a "language consultant", then that's how people will look at you and pay you. It's always your choice what you want for yourself.
Inside #2: After I had a market and I looked the part, I had to do more. I had to be accepted as a member of the club. Here's what I did. Every time I entered an office building, I looked at the front desk to see what newspapers and magazines were being delivered (lots of Asian Wall Street Journals, International Herald Tribunes, Fortunes, and very few China Posts, and no China News). I started reading them. Now I have to say, this also went against my grain, since I had gotten my BA and MA in comparative literature. But no one was going to pay me to talk about semiotics or post-modernism! So I learned the language and concepts of my target audience. For my Big Pharma clients, I learned about clinical trials and drug research and development. If you like to teach children, read up on childhood development and psychology, so you can communicate with parents and peers.
In short, when I learned a lot about the things my target clients cared about, they started to view me as a peer and not a commodity resource. In fact, when one of my clients merged with another, I was brought in to help the senior management team plan their presentations, questions, and communication strategy. Why? Because I was a management consultant, not an English teacher.
For clients like this, in the mid-late 90s, I chaged NT$1400-NT$1500 an hour, and simply submitted timesheets every two months. I set my rate. I raised it annually. Not one was ever challenged. Why? Because I created such value for them. In many cases I had helped them keep their high-level jobs.
When I started posting at Dave's ESL Cafe about my experience making money in Taiwan, some were skeptical, a couple frankly unbelieving. Quite understandably! But these are the basic principles I used. Nothing esoteric, nothing any of you could not do. But you have to have some ambition, tenacity, customer intimacy, and creativity, and not just wait for your school to give you a plate of students ever 8-12 weeks.
