How to know if there is demand for my service

[Tom Stotes]

<div class="bbWrapper">Hello everyone, I&#039;m Tom. Just joined the forum, having read the Fastlane.<br /> <br /> I have a question about my business idea. I believe it fits all or most of the CENTS framework, but my fear is simple: is there demand?<br /> <br /> For context, I am a freelance English teacher (English as a second language). <br /> Recently I have been trying to sell &#039;premium&#039; level English communication skills courses to freelancers for whom English is not their first language. <br /> They can potentially earn significantly more money by improving those skills and working with more UK/US clients.<br /> <br /> In other words: I want to help them to become more successful freelancers, and I know I have the skills to do it. <br /> <br /> The problem is that a lot of freelancers particularly in &#039;poorer&#039; countries don&#039;t have a lot of expendable income. I was trying to sell a $1000 course to people who earn $500 a month, so I wasn&#039;t having much success. <br /> <br /> The book made me think that a much better way would be to offer a service that impacted a lot more people but for a much more affordable cost, and would also give me unlimited leverage as it would not be reliant on my direct hours with my students.<br /> <br /> My idea:<br /> A membership / subscription business with exclusive content, video courses, and so on.<br /> <br /> I have learned, through my connections on LinkedIn and research that plenty of freelancers know how important English communication skills are. So I really do have a good feeling that this is a potentially good business. I also know that while there are people who coach freelancers, there is no one really focussing on non-native English freelancers. It&#039;s also a potentially huge market, 15 million freelancers in India, 30 million in Indonesia alone.<br /> <br /> However when I do keyword research for specific keywords the avg search numbers are pretty low which makes me wonder if there is not really any demand for this.<br /> <br /> So, my question is: Do I need to worry that specific keywords have low search volume? How can I know if there really is a demand for my business that is not just my &#039;feeling&#039; and personal contact with people? Especially considering my business model is about hitting high scale.<br /> <br /> Thanks so much for any advice on this.</div>

 

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[AnonGuest093]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 119222" data-quote="Tom Stotes" data-source="post: 1041095" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041095" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041095">Tom Stotes said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Hello everyone, I&#039;m Tom. Just joined the forum, having read the Fastlane.<br /> <br /> I have a question about my business idea. I believe it fits all or most of the CENTS framework, but my fear is simple: is there demand?<br /> <br /> For context, I am a freelance English teacher (English as a second language).<br /> Recently I have been trying to sell &#039;premium&#039; level English communication skills courses to freelancers for whom English is not their first language.<br /> They can potentially earn significantly more money by improving those skills and working with more UK/US clients.<br /> <br /> In other words: I want to help them to become more successful freelancers, and I know I have the skills to do it.<br /> <br /> The problem is that a lot of freelancers particularly in &#039;poorer&#039; countries don&#039;t have a lot of expendable income. I was trying to sell a $1000 course to people who earn $500 a month, so I wasn&#039;t having much success. <br /> <br /> The book made me think that a much better way would be to offer a service that impacted a lot more people but for a much more affordable cost, and would also give me unlimited leverage as it would not be reliant on my direct hours with my students.<br /> <br /> My idea:<br /> A membership / subscription business with exclusive content, video courses, and so on.<br /> <br /> I have learned, through my connections on LinkedIn and research that plenty of freelancers know how important English communication skills are. So I really do have a good feeling that this is a potentially good business. I also know that while there are people who coach freelancers, there is no one really focussing on non-native English freelancers. It&#039;s also a potentially huge market, 15 million freelancers in India, 30 million in Indonesia alone.<br /> <br /> However when I do keyword research for specific keywords the avg search numbers are pretty low which makes me wonder if there is not really any demand for this.<br /> <br /> So, my question is: Do I need to worry that specific keywords have low search volume? How can I know if there really is a demand for my business that is not just my &#039;feeling&#039; and personal contact with people? Especially considering my business model is about hitting high scale.<br /> <br /> Thanks so much for any advice on this. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>I&#039;m not going to pretend like I know anything. But I&#039;ve read enough from other folks on here to know that you&#039;re gonna get a recommendation to run facebook ads at your target audience leading to a Gumroad or something similar.<br /> <br /> I think you could know if the idea has legs in about a weekend and for some reasonable ad $$ if you already have the content made up. Just work on some solid copy for the landing page and see what you can do.</div>

 

[Andy Black]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 119222" data-quote="Tom Stotes" data-source="post: 1041095" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041095" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041095">Tom Stotes said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Do I need to worry that specific keywords have low search volume? </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Load them and see? They&#039;re just estimates, and they&#039;re for the exact match keyword/ search term (meaning there&#039;s going to be other related searches).</div>

 

[savefox]

<div class="bbWrapper">You can sell it for whatever you want as long as the value &gt; the price. Would you buy a course for $10.000 that will help you make an extra $50.000 this year GUARANTEED? You just need to ensure your prospects that they will make more money than they paid for the course. You can give it away for free and only charge them when they make that extra profit</div>

 

[fridge]

<div class="bbWrapper">So it sounds like you&#039;re pretty dead set on some type of course route. <br /> <br /> In addition to running FB/Google Ads, I suggest trying to make some YouTube videos for free or some other type of un-paid resource. If you can&#039;t attract an audience by giving away your product for free, you&#039;re probably going to have a tough time selling it.<br /> <br /> Another thing you can do is find out your top 3-5 competitors and see what kind of keywords they&#039;re using, what their business model is like, how much of their content is free, etc.<br /> <br /> Some paid tools like SEMrush are extremely powerful, to the point you can find out what keywords your competitors are using for ads, what their ad copy text is, what their organic search keywords/rankings are, etc.<br /> <br /> From my point of view, some heavy hitting free content and competitor analysis would be a great place to start in addition to above.</div>

 

[Patryk.]

<div class="bbWrapper">On YouTube A.J. Hoge have a similar content. I listened to him a long time ago and his vibes were always cool.</div>

 

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[Andreas Thiel]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 81604" data-quote="fridge" data-source="post: 1041119" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041119" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041119">fridge said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> In addition to running FB/Google Ads, I suggest trying to make some YouTube videos for free or some other type of un-paid resource. If you can&#039;t attract an audience by giving away your product for free, you&#039;re probably going to have a tough time selling it. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>I am not sure this is correct. Ramit Sethi usually says you want to figure out where the fish are. Just assuming Google, Facebook and Youtube are always the answer might be wrong. He also says you should find a channel where your target audience is already buying things. Otherwise you might attract primarily freeloaders who will never buy from you or always complain about the price.<br /> <br /> My guts say that a lot of these freelancers learn on Udemy. You could have a course (pretty involved validation, I know) there and try to lure them to your subscription platform as you build your brand with ads on several platforms to figure out which one works best. Imagine your courses help and your customers are successful. They might wonder how they can level up and have the money for that $500 course.<br /> <br /> I suppose you could have a relatively cheap course about how to avoid common mistakes in pitches or even how to stand out in online meetings. If you manage to write SEO to get people to find your Udemy course on Google, that has the added benefit that you earn more when you bring people to Udemy, rather than relying on Udemy to send customers your way (if I remember correctly, they take a significantly larger cut in that case).<br /> The thing is, it will be hard to know exactly if you have invalidated the idea or if you just have not identified the mechanics and main channels that they use.<br /> <br /> You could maybe even try to reach out to freelancers on Fiverr and pay them a small amount for an interview. With the right direct or indirect questions they might tell you &quot;where the fish are&quot;. You could also get between companies and the freelancers that they hire. I know that it is a common topic how hard / exhausting it is to comprehend Indians who talk too fast. But can an online course fix this issue?<br /> <br /> Not sure about the product. With advanced English, it might make sense to have such courses.<br /> As I spend time in Duolingo, I notice that crazy amounts of repetitions are required until things are starting to stick.<br /> <br /> My biggest worry if I were to take on that challenge would be that their main preceived sticking point might be something that you can&#039;t possibly address or that you care very little about, and that they will be in denial of what what could actually propel them forward.<br /> Convincing people to fix their priorities hardly ever works. Most success stories revolve around addressing a perceived problem.</div>

 

[Tom Stotes]

<div class="bbWrapper">Thanks so much for all the replies! I really do appreciate it. You&#039;ve all given me a good sense of where I can go from here.<br /> <br /> Overall, it seems like my best approach will be to create my minimum viable product, or possibly just one element of my service, and run some paid tests to see if it gets any traction. I don&#039;t mind spending a bit of money to run the ads, I&#039;d rather do that than spend a lot of time on something that isn&#039;t going to work.<br /> <br /> <blockquote data-attributes="member: 59873" data-quote="Andreas Thiel" data-source="post: 1041170" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041170" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041170">Andreas Thiel said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I am not sure this is correct. Ramit Sethi usually says you want to figure out where the fish are. Just assuming Google, Facebook and Youtube are always the answer might be wrong. He also says you should find a channel where your target audience is already buying things. Otherwise you might attract primarily freeloaders who will never buy from you or always complain about the price.<br /> <br /> My guts say that a lot of these freelancers learn on Udemy. You could have a course (pretty involved validation, I know) there and try to lure them to your subscription platform as you build your brand with ads on several platforms to figure out which one works best. Imagine your courses help and your customers are successful. They might wonder how they can level up and have the money for that $500 course.<br /> <br /> I suppose you could have a relatively cheap course about how to avoid common mistakes in pitches or even how to stand out in online meetings. If you manage to write SEO to get people to find your Udemy course on Google, that has the added benefit that you earn more when you bring people to Udemy, rather than relying on Udemy to send customers your way (if I remember correctly, they take a significantly larger cut in that case).<br /> The thing is, it will be hard to know exactly if you have invalidated the idea or if you just have not identified the mechanics and main channels that they use.<br /> <br /> You could maybe even try to reach out to freelancers on Fiverr and pay them a small amount for an interview. With the right direct or indirect questions they might tell you &quot;where the fish are&quot;. You could also get between companies and the freelancers that they hire. I know that it is a common topic how hard / exhausting it is to comprehend Indians who talk too fast. But can an online course fix this issue?<br /> <br /> Not sure about the product. With advanced English, it might make sense to have such courses.<br /> As I spend time in Duolingo, I notice that crazy amounts of repetitions are required until things are starting to stick.<br /> <br /> My biggest worry if I were to take on that challenge would be that their main preceived sticking point might be something that you can&#039;t possibly address or that you care very little about, and that they will be in denial of what what could actually propel them forward.<br /> Convincing people to fix their priorities hardly ever works. Most success stories revolve around addressing a perceived problem. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Thanks for the suggestion about Udemy. I definitely plan to put courses on there and on Skillshare, all with the intention of getting people onto the subscription down the line. Bigger courses will be just one part of it. I&#039;d like to have lots of mini courses that members can access as part of their subscription. <br /> Your point at the end is the biggest sticking point and my current thinking is that it will all come down to marketing. Often freelancers know they have problems, but they don&#039;t know why. For example: they can&#039;t get enough clients. They think that something is wrong with their strategy, but it is clearly that they have terrible communication skills and no one wants to work with them. I have to be clever in my marketing and SEO so that as they search for their problems, they are directed to my solution. Is that a good approach in your opinion, or is that trying to convince them to fix their priorities?</div>

 

[Andreas Thiel]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 119222" data-quote="Tom Stotes" data-source="post: 1041472" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041472" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041472">Tom Stotes said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> ...<br /> Your point at the end is the biggest sticking point and my current thinking is that it will all come down to marketing. Often freelancers know they have problems, but they don&#039;t know why. For example: they can&#039;t get enough clients. They think that something is wrong with their strategy, but it is clearly that they have terrible communication skills and no one wants to work with them. I have to be clever in my marketing and SEO so that as they search for their problems, they are directed to my solution. Is that a good approach in your opinion, or is that trying to convince them to fix their priorities? </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>My guts say that it is a concern. Try to walk a few steps in their shoes and you&#039;ll understand the sentiment behind the worry.<br /> <br /> 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&#039;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 /> <br /> After this thought exercise I&#039;d say there are two things you can consider:<br /> 1. mentally prepare for a situation where you have to pivot towards a contingency &quot;feel good&quot; 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 /> <br /> The tricky part is when you tell them to do something inconvenient and they tell you &quot;No, I&#039;m good - I&#039;ll skip this one. My problems lie elsewhere&quot;. 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 /> <br /> Edit: Maybe I should point out explicitly that I don&#039;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.).</div>

 

[Funky Monkey]

<div class="bbWrapper">If I was in the early stage of testing need. I would try to find valuation for free Here&#039;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. <br /> <blockquote data-attributes="member: 119222" data-quote="Tom Stotes" data-source="post: 1041095" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041095" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041095">Tom Stotes said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Hello everyone, I&#039;m Tom. Just joined the forum, having read the Fastlane.<br /> <br /> I have a question about my business idea. I believe it fits all or most of the CENTS framework, but my fear is simple: is there demand?<br /> <br /> For context, I am a freelance English teacher (English as a second language).<br /> Recently I have been trying to sell &#039;premium&#039; level English communication skills courses to freelancers for whom English is not their first language.<br /> They can potentially earn significantly more money by improving those skills and working with more UK/US clients.<br /> <br /> In other words: I want to help them to become more successful freelancers, and I know I have the skills to do it.<br /> <br /> The problem is that a lot of freelancers particularly in &#039;poorer&#039; countries don&#039;t have a lot of expendable income. I was trying to sell a $1000 course to people who earn $500 a month, so I wasn&#039;t having much success. <br /> <br /> The book made me think that a much better way would be to offer a service that impacted a lot more people but for a much more affordable cost, and would also give me unlimited leverage as it would not be reliant on my direct hours with my students.<br /> <br /> My idea:<br /> A membership / subscription business with exclusive content, video courses, and so on.<br /> <br /> I have learned, through my connections on LinkedIn and research that plenty of freelancers know how important English communication skills are. So I really do have a good feeling that this is a potentially good business. I also know that while there are people who coach freelancers, there is no one really focussing on non-native English freelancers. It&#039;s also a potentially huge market, 15 million freelancers in India, 30 million in Indonesia alone.<br /> <br /> However when I do keyword research for specific keywords the avg search numbers are pretty low which makes me wonder if there is not really any demand for this.<br /> <br /> So, my question is: Do I need to worry that specific keywords have low search volume? How can I know if there really is a demand for my business that is not just my &#039;feeling&#039; and personal contact with people? Especially considering my business model is about hitting high scale.<br /> <br /> Thanks so much for any advice on this. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote></div>

 

[jdm667]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 59873" data-quote="Andreas Thiel" data-source="post: 1041170" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041170" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041170">Andreas Thiel said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I am not sure this is correct. Ramit Sethi usually says you want to figure out where the fish are. Just assuming Google, Facebook and Youtube are always the answer might be wrong. He also says you should find a channel where your target audience is already buying things. Otherwise you might attract primarily freeloaders who will never buy from you or always complain about the price.<br /> <br /> My guts say that a lot of these freelancers learn on Udemy. You could have a course (pretty involved validation, I know) there and try to lure them to your subscription platform as you build your brand with ads on several platforms to figure out which one works best. Imagine your courses help and your customers are successful. They might wonder how they can level up and have the money for that $500 course.<br /> <br /> I suppose you could have a relatively cheap course about how to avoid common mistakes in pitches or even how to stand out in online meetings. If you manage to write SEO to get people to find your Udemy course on Google, that has the added benefit that you earn more when you bring people to Udemy, rather than relying on Udemy to send customers your way (if I remember correctly, they take a significantly larger cut in that case).<br /> The thing is, it will be hard to know exactly if you have invalidated the idea or if you just have not identified the mechanics and main channels that they use.<br /> <br /> You could maybe even try to reach out to freelancers on Fiverr and pay them a small amount for an interview. With the right direct or indirect questions they might tell you &quot;where the fish are&quot;. You could also get between companies and the freelancers that they hire. I know that it is a common topic how hard / exhausting it is to comprehend Indians who talk too fast. But can an online course fix this issue?<br /> <br /> Not sure about the product. With advanced English, it might make sense to have such courses.<br /> As I spend time in Duolingo, I notice that crazy amounts of repetitions are required until things are starting to stick.<br /> <br /> My biggest worry if I were to take on that challenge would be that their main preceived sticking point might be something that you can&#039;t possibly address or that you care very little about, and that they will be in denial of what what could actually propel them forward.<br /> Convincing people to fix their priorities hardly ever works. Most success stories revolve around addressing a perceived problem. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Good idea. I think you can see how many people signed up to take a Udemy course (along with the prices).<br /> <br /> Look up the most popular courses to learn English - what kinds of numbers are they showing?<br /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> 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.</div>

 

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[Tom Stotes]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 59873" data-quote="Andreas Thiel" data-source="post: 1041479" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041479" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041479">Andreas Thiel said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> My guts say that it is a concern. Try to walk a few steps in their shoes and you&#039;ll understand the sentiment behind the worry.<br /> <br /> 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&#039;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 /> <br /> After this thought exercise I&#039;d say there are two things you can consider:<br /> 1. mentally prepare for a situation where you have to pivot towards a contingency &quot;feel good&quot; 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 /> <br /> The tricky part is when you tell them to do something inconvenient and they tell you &quot;No, I&#039;m good - I&#039;ll skip this one. My problems lie elsewhere&quot;. 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 /> <br /> Edit: Maybe I should point out explicitly that I don&#039;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.). </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> Thanks again for such a detailed response.<br /> <br /> Just to clarify, and also to the points made by a few others - this is advanced English communication skills. I&#039;m not really targetting people who speak little English (that&#039;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 /> <br /> I understand the principle of selling results, so everything I do will be, for instance &#039;get more clients&#039; / &#039;write proposals that get you long term contracts&#039; / &#039;rise above the 90% of freelancers on Upwork&#039; etc, rather than just &#039;improve your English&#039;.<br /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> I&#039;d love for it to become more as well. An education system and community, not only for communication skills but for &#039;soft skills for freelancers&#039; generally.<br /> <br /> <blockquote data-attributes="member: 76544" data-quote="jdm667" data-source="post: 1041489" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041489" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041489">jdm667 said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Good idea. I think you can see how many people signed up to take a Udemy course (along with the prices).<br /> <br /> Look up the most popular courses to learn English - what kinds of numbers are they showing?<br /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> 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. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </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 /> <br /> 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 /> <br /> <blockquote data-attributes="member: 102958" data-quote="Funky Monkey" data-source="post: 1041487" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041487" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041487">Funky Monkey said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> If I was in the early stage of testing need. I would try to find valuation for free Here&#039;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. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Thank you for the Alex Hormozi tip, it looks very helpful!</div>

 

[Andy Black]

<div class="bbWrapper">If you&#039;re already known on LinkedIn then why not drop a little post like I did here:<br /> <br /> <div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--unfurl js-unfurl fauxBlockLink" data-unfurl="true" data-result-id="340950" data-url="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/just-start-already.98547/" data-host="www.thefastlaneforum.com" data-pending="false"> <div class="contentRow"> <div class="contentRow-figure contentRow-figure--fixedSmall js-unfurl-figure"> <img src="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/data/assets/logo/fastlane_discussion_og.png" loading="lazy" alt="www.thefastlaneforum.com" class="bbCodeBlockUnfurl-image" data-onerror="hide-parent"/> </div> <div class="contentRow-main"> <h3 class="contentRow-header js-unfurl-title"> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/just-start-already.98547/" class="link link--internal fauxBlockLink-blockLink" target="" rel="" data-proxy-href=""> MARKETING - Just start already </a> </h3> <div class="contentRow-snippet js-unfurl-desc">It was just after midnight on 10-Nov-20 and I was annoyed with myself for not starting a particular project I&#039;d been thinking about for a few weeks. I decided to quickly post a short note to my Facebook profile before hitting the hay. At the time I had 880 friends on Facebook and had been a...</div> <div class="contentRow-minor contentRow-minor--hideLinks"> <span class="js-unfurl-favicon"> <img src="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/data/assets/logo/Fastlane32.png" loading="lazy" alt="www.thefastlaneforum.com" class="bbCodeBlockUnfurl-icon" data-onerror="hide-parent"/> </span> www.thefastlaneforum.com </div> </div> </div> </div></div>

 

[Tom Stotes]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 23590" data-quote="Andy Black" data-source="post: 1041509" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041509" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041509">Andy Black said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> If you&#039;re already known on LinkedIn then why not drop a little post like I did here:<br /> <br /> <div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--unfurl js-unfurl fauxBlockLink" data-unfurl="true" data-result-id="340950" data-url="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/just-start-already.98547/" data-host="www.thefastlaneforum.com" data-pending="false"> <div class="contentRow"> <div class="contentRow-figure contentRow-figure--fixedSmall js-unfurl-figure"> <img src="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/data/assets/logo/fastlane_discussion_og.png" loading="lazy" alt="www.thefastlaneforum.com" class="bbCodeBlockUnfurl-image" data-onerror="hide-parent"/> </div> <div class="contentRow-main"> <h3 class="contentRow-header js-unfurl-title"> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/just-start-already.98547/" class="link link--internal fauxBlockLink-blockLink" target="" rel="" data-proxy-href=""> MARKETING - Just start already </a> </h3> <div class="contentRow-snippet js-unfurl-desc">It was just after midnight on 10-Nov-20 and I was annoyed with myself for not starting a particular project I&#039;d been thinking about for a few weeks. I decided to quickly post a short note to my Facebook profile before hitting the hay. At the time I had 880 friends on Facebook and had been a...</div> <div class="contentRow-minor contentRow-minor--hideLinks"> <span class="js-unfurl-favicon"> <img src="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/data/assets/logo/Fastlane32.png" loading="lazy" alt="www.thefastlaneforum.com" class="bbCodeBlockUnfurl-icon" data-onerror="hide-parent"/> </span> www.thefastlaneforum.com </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Good shout, thank you. I guess I wanted to find out what demand there was through the keywords / on a wider level. But I will definitely look to start a conversation with my current connections about it.</div>

 

[Jeix]

<div class="bbWrapper">I don&#039;t think you need unlimited leverage and all 5 commandments satisfied on day 1, as long as you are creating value you&#039;ll grow and you&#039;ll be able to adapt along the way.<br /> Even the most basic idea of all (teaching English in person) can generate profits and evolve into a school, then into a franchise of shools across your country or even the world, at which point you&#039;ll be financially free (look up the story of Tom Misner). There&#039;s a bunch of English schools like that in Italy and although I question their methods, I can&#039;t deny their success and how widespread they&#039;ve become. They are particularly successful in big cities because they tend to attract more business and it&#039;s more likely more people will need English. Obviously this doesn&#039;t stop you from starting a one-person show online or in your town and then expanding to bigger cities down the line.<br /> <br /> Basically think it over, get started, follow what works, optimize, then scale.</div>

 

[Tom Stotes]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 60996" data-quote="Jeix" data-source="post: 1041524" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041524" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041524">Jeix said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I don&#039;t think you need unlimited leverage and all 5 commandments satisfied on day 1, as long as you are creating value you&#039;ll grow and you&#039;ll be able to adapt along the way.<br /> Even the most basic idea of all (teaching English in person) can generate profits and evolve into a school, then into a franchise of shools across your country or even the world, at which point you&#039;ll be financially free (look up the story of Tom Misner). There&#039;s a bunch of English schools like that in Italy and although I question their methods, I can&#039;t deny their success and how widespread they&#039;ve become. They are particularly successful in big cities because they tend to attract more business and it&#039;s more likely more people will need English. Obviously this doesn&#039;t stop you from starting a one-person show online or in your town and then expanding to bigger cities down the line.<br /> <br /> Basically think it over, get started, follow what works, optimize, then scale. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>That&#039;s a good point. I have to remind myself that it doesn&#039;t need to be the final package straight away. I know what I offer has value for people. I just have to work out the best way to get it across and make some money in the process. Thanks!</div>

 

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[monnffffiiiiiii]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 119222" data-quote="Tom Stotes" data-source="post: 1041095" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041095" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041095">Tom Stotes said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> there is no one really focussing on non-native English freelancers. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>From experience, non-native speakers speak English as well as the natives.<br /> <br /> Language learning is also a <b>highly </b>competitive market.<br /> <br /> There is, however, an underserved niche with high yet invisible demand: <b>accent training</b>.<br /> <br /> Most non-native speakers secretly hate their accent in English and dream to sound native.<br /> <br /> I figure you could make a course (or run B2B workshops) tailored for French, Spanish, German, or Scottish (lol) speakers.<br /> <br /> Each language will struggle with one thing in particular.<br /> <br /> Eg: Germans can&#039;t pronounce &quot;squirrel&quot;.<br /> French don&#039;t understand the notion of &quot;stress&quot; on the syllables.<br /> The Dutch can&#039;t pronounce &quot;idea&quot; (they say &quot;idear&quot;)<br /> The Spanish struggle not to roll the Rs<br /> The Italians struggle with the sound &quot;ea&quot; as in &quot;speak&quot;. They say &quot;sp-ii-k&quot;<br /> <br /> -&gt; <b>Don&#039;t make an English Native Accent course for &quot;everyone&quot;. </b><br /> <br /> Here&#039;s how I would go about it if I had to develop this idea:<br /> <br /> 1. Decide which language you want to help (I&#039;d go for German or French).<br /> <br /> 2. Test the idea: you want to sell to people that have money, so <b>forget about freelancers.</b> Target managers or executives from big international companies whose job is to talk (sales, marketing, etc). Linkedin is best here, but I would actually go for IRL marketing too (flyers + posters).<br /> <br /> - Restaurants around offices<br /> - High-end bars<br /> - Tennis, golf, [insert fancy sport] clubs<br /> - Airport lounges<br /> - Casinos<br /> <br /> 3. Build the solution. Honestly, I would go for IRL workshops (aka consulting). I used to know a girl who made a fortune teaching Flemish to French-speaking executives in Belgium. Build your workshop, teach it yourself, then hire other natives as you grow (should not be difficult).<br /> <br /> If you do a good job, companies will hire you the next year to teach the new recruits.<br /> <br /> Good luck!</div>

 

[melanieps]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 119222" data-quote="Tom Stotes" data-source="post: 1041095" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1041095" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1041095">Tom Stotes said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Hello everyone, I&#039;m Tom. Just joined the forum, having read the Fastlane.<br /> <br /> I have a question about my business idea. I believe it fits all or most of the CENTS framework, but my fear is simple: is there demand?<br /> <br /> For context, I am a freelance English teacher (English as a second language).<br /> Recently I have been trying to sell &#039;premium&#039; level English communication skills courses to freelancers for whom English is not their first language.<br /> They can potentially earn significantly more money by improving those skills and working with more UK/US clients.<br /> <br /> In other words: I want to help them to become more successful freelancers, and I know I have the skills to do it.<br /> <br /> The problem is that a lot of freelancers particularly in &#039;poorer&#039; countries don&#039;t have a lot of expendable income. I was trying to sell a $1000 course to people who earn $500 a month, so I wasn&#039;t having much success. <br /> <br /> The book made me think that a much better way would be to offer a service that impacted a lot more people but for a much more affordable cost, and would also give me unlimited leverage as it would not be reliant on my direct hours with my students.<br /> <br /> My idea:<br /> A membership / subscription business with exclusive content, video courses, and so on.<br /> <br /> I have learned, through my connections on LinkedIn and research that plenty of freelancers know how important English communication skills are. So I really do have a good feeling that this is a potentially good business. I also know that while there are people who coach freelancers, there is no one really focussing on non-native English freelancers. It&#039;s also a potentially huge market, 15 million freelancers in India, 30 million in Indonesia alone.<br /> <br /> However when I do keyword research for specific keywords the avg search numbers are pretty low which makes me wonder if there is not really any demand for this.<br /> <br /> So, my question is: Do I need to worry that specific keywords have low search volume? How can I know if there really is a demand for my business that is not just my &#039;feeling&#039; and personal contact with people? Especially considering my business model is about hitting high scale.<br /> <br /> Thanks so much for any advice on this. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>If you already have a product (platform, content and the service) I would change the target group and the marketing strategy. <br /> <br /> ESL is a big market in Asia and is a great idea, but I think, freelancers are not an ideal target group. Sometimes they have unstable income, so you might get unstable clients. I would change the target group into companies that their personal is required to communicate in English in an advance level, make courses on training groups in specific topics (trading, business, education, multinationals, logistics, etc.).<br /> <br /> Also the marketing strategy can be difficult in some countries. (I live in Shanghai and there&#039;s a huge market on English learning, but as is known, here the internet is blocked for Youtube, Facebook, Google, etc. it is not impossible, but most Chinese people have their own social medial and communication channels - in Chinese and English). so facebook-ads and Youtube videos won&#039;t work at all. <br /> <br /> I recommend <br /> <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Study the most popular local communication channels to enter and show your value in the selected country . </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Study the selected target group - In my opinion focus on International Co., International schools, (not for the kids, for the staff).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Study which business really need to use languages to function. Learn everything about the main ones. Find the owner, CEO or the head of staff, set a meeting and present a plan, show how their company will benefit from your service and product. Win-Win mentality </li> </ol>Hope that can help a bit.</div>