<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 59873" data-quote="Andreas Thiel" data-source="post: 1041479"
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My guts say that it is a concern. Try to walk a few steps in their shoes and you'll understand the sentiment behind the worry.<br />
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How do you feel when somebody shows you your flaws, tells you that the way you have been talking in countless previous meetings before made you come across as impatient, maybe arrogant and that people have a hard time understanding what you say? You are told that you have a ton of work ahead of you, just to get to a point where you don't suck, even after you learned English the hard way and invested quite some energy, time and maybe money to get to the level that you are at. It is a challenge to sell the product without making them feel extremely bad about where they are at.<br />
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After this thought exercise I'd say there are two things you can consider:<br />
1. mentally prepare for a situation where you have to pivot towards a contingency "feel good" product, built around what your target audience considers its main problem - maybe plan to have both products from the get go<br />
2. try to manage the way the customers feels through the product ... let them show off what they are already pretty okay at and get them excited about tackling the actual challenges, leading with benefits, like promises that they can outperform 80% of their peers in the group of advanced learners by going the extra mile now - doing the tedious work that only the top performers sign up for - basically dodging the brutal reality check and still getting them to take steps towards the destination and feeling good about it<br />
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The tricky part is when you tell them to do something inconvenient and they tell you "No, I'm good - I'll skip this one. My problems lie elsewhere". I suppose you can make that a part of your validation phase - checking if you keep running into this, maybe with self ranking surveys. Maybe my intuition is wrong. Maybe there are legions trying to figure out how to sound more like a native speaker and that is the best benefit to lead with!?<br />
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Edit: Maybe I should point out explicitly that I don't think most have emotionally accepted that they must have problems in the language learning department. In a way, many of them are probably in denial and they blame others (hiring decisions unfair, it might be their looks, racism etc.).
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</blockquote><br />
Thanks again for such a detailed response.<br />
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Just to clarify, and also to the points made by a few others - this is advanced English communication skills. I'm not really targetting people who speak little English (that's a totally different story, those guys need General English lessons - what I have been doing for the last 6 years).<br />
Now I am offering English communication skills at an intermediate to advanced level. Helping them to master their pronunciation, and expand their language specifically regarding how they communicate in their work. For example: interviews, proposal writing, written communication, meetings, promoting themselves, maintaining good relationships with their clients and so on.<br />
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I understand the principle of selling results, so everything I do will be, for instance 'get more clients' / 'write proposals that get you long term contracts' / 'rise above the 90% of freelancers on Upwork' etc, rather than just 'improve your English'.<br />
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For the last year or so I have been on LinkedIn creating content and being part of a community of freelancers. I have had very positive responses to my posts and I know that lots of people do feel that communication is an area that is holding them back. However, my end goal has been to sell them a course of 10 x 1-1 lessons with me for up to $1000.<br />
99% of people I spoke to, knew that they would benefit from my service, but simply were not prepared to invest so much. Hence why now I want to offer those people access to all of my knowledge in the form of videos and other exclusive content for a fraction of the price.<br />
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But the essential part of this being a success is about numbers. I will offer my knowledge at a significantly lower cost, but I will need a lot of people to sign up (over time, I fully expect it will take 1-2 years at least to get significant numbers.<br />
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I'd love for it to become more as well. An education system and community, not only for communication skills but for 'soft skills for freelancers' generally.<br />
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<blockquote data-attributes="member: 76544" data-quote="jdm667" data-source="post: 1041489"
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Good idea. I think you can see how many people signed up to take a Udemy course (along with the prices).<br />
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Look up the most popular courses to learn English - what kinds of numbers are they showing?<br />
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What percentage of them would pay more for a premium course? That should at least give you an idea of the market size before you create an MVP.<br />
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Also, is there a way you can target intermediate English speakers and help them get to expert level? They are probably already making more money as freelancers with decent English language skills - so they will have more disposable income to pay for a premium offer.
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</blockquote>Thanks, good suggestion. Generally, learn English courses do very high numbers. There are a lot of course out there, nothing specifically targetted towards freelancers, and a lot of the courses are garbage.<br />
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My main goal with this business is the membership. I will (probably) also sell premium course, but the main thing I want is high numbers of people signing up for the exclusive content which is access to my high level knowledge for a much lower rate than it would cost them to meet with me 1-1.<br />
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<blockquote data-attributes="member: 102958" data-quote="Funky Monkey" data-source="post: 1041487"
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If I was in the early stage of testing need. I would try to find valuation for free Here's how 1st i would try to think of what type of people want your service/product. For your case freelancers who need english but who else needs preimum enlgish clases? International business owners,exchange students,contractors,etc. Now where would these people either congregate or how can I get in contact with them. For students maybe an English practicing discord,For biz owners some sort of America Facebook group,etc. From there I would offer as much as I could while still charging a fair price. Dont worry about scale for now offer the world. Check the offers quadrant by Alex hormozi and try to build it kind of like that. From their that should hopefully get you your first few customers. Which you once your done ask them to leave you a review,testiomonal,and feedback.
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</blockquote>Thank you for the Alex Hormozi tip, it looks very helpful!</div>