Sept. 19, 2012
This was posted yesterday.This teacher faces competition from the Khan Academy. There is no question that his rival is extremely successful. His rival has been given a lot of money by some very rich people to make his site even better. So, what can he offer that his rival does not offer?
The first step in starting a business is to identify the target audience that will pay for the service. In his case, these are parents of high school students. Parents do not have to pay for their children to use Khan Academy, but not that many parents know about Khan Academy. Also, there is no systematic program available to students at the Khan Academy to take them through the program, step-by-step, in a clear, open, and motivational way. The student can get through the videos, but the site lacks feedback from living people. There is no tutorial aspect in it.
I recommend that anyone who starts a business should sit down with pen and paper, or with a word processing program, and write a long letter to a person who best represents the targeted group at which the businessman is aiming. If it is the parent of a high school student, the teacher has to make certain what that parent wants from a program. Is the student having problems with the basics? In other words, is the student a remedial student? If so, the letter must be written in order to motivate a parent to take a single action step that will enable his child, or more likely her child, to make up for lost time in school.
Maybe the parent has a different problem. Maybe the student is a college prep student, and the parent is interested in helping that student achieve very high grades. The students will need the high grades to get into one of the better universities. I don't recommend this strategy, but a lot of parents want this, so if you are in a position to help them achieve this goal for their children, there is a profit opportunity available.
The person who starts a business must have a very clear understanding of why the service which he intends to offer is superior to anything else on the market. Anyone who starts a business who does not have this degree of self-confidence should not start a business. The whole idea of a competitive business is that the services supplied by the business are superior to the competition.
If an individual is unsure about what it is that he can sell that is superior to the competition, that person is almost certain to fail. If he cannot tell a prospective customer why the customer really ought to spend money to purchase whatever it is the business owner is selling, then the business owner is going to preside over a bankruptcy. If the owner cannot make it clear to the buyer why his services are the best, he should not expect the buyer to be able to figure it out.
This is why I think everyone should start with that initial sales letter. He should pour his heart into that letter. He should write it from the point of view of the individual who receives it, which means it has to be benefits-oriented. But if he cannot think through the list of benefits, and describe them in a motivational way in his letter, he is going to find buyer resistance. He has to learn what motivates buyers to spend their money.
Anyone who cannot write a motivational letter is probably incapable of writing a motivational ad. He does not understand how to motivate buyers, so he will have a very great difficulty dealing with people on a regular basis. If, however, he has spelled out in a sales letter what the benefits are, he will then begin to focus on what it takes to deliver exactly these benefits. He will structure his business so as to deliver these benefits, and deliver them in such a way that the paying customer has a sense of participation in the process -- an enjoyable experience. If he does not have an enjoyable experience, it does not matter that the seller has produced a service of very high quality. If the buyer does not perceive this high quality, and if he does not share in the exhilaration of the process of receiving it, he is probably not going to come back again.
The teacher has got to have a sense of self-confidence about his ability to impart meaningful information to his students, and to do so in such a way that the students will retain this information long enough to pass an examination. If he does not have this ability, he is in the wrong profession. So, a teacher who wants to start a website or a blog site has to focus on how to persuade the student to stick with the program, which means he has to persuade the student to keep coming back. A student has to have a sense of participation, and he has to have a sense that he is improving his performance. If the teacher cannot provide this, the venture will fail.
The Khan Academy now has a series of examinations which provide positive feedback to the student. This is a major development, and it was funded by the donors. The site did not originally have this. There has to be positive feedback throughout the process, or else the student will give up. If the student gives up, he will dig in his heels. The student will be able to persuade his parent that it is not a good idea for the parent to continue to purchase the service.
So, I recommend that the teacher sit down and write that letter. It should be a long letter. Preferably, it should be 15 pages of single-spaced copy, if this is possible. A long letter can be boiled down into short bullet points or other means of communication. It can be put into a YouTube video. The more benefits there are, and the better the letter writer can explain them in motivational terms, the more successful his website or blog site will be.
This is true of you in your work also. You need to work on that sales letter.
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