There are many topics that niggle language school owners, especially in these times and in the face of unpredictability about the future. Many of you now have to think several times about the things that used to be part of the natural cycle of school life before you decide to take a concrete step. How to recruit students? How to keep them? Is it worth raising prices and how to communicate this to students?
Today, we’re going to focus on the aspects of running and developing an existing school, and most of all, on the topic that many of you are interested in, which is how do you raise prices, why you should not be afraid of doing it, and how to communicate this to students. If you want to find out how to update your price list, why it is not worthwhile to compete with other schools on price, and how the departure of some students can increase the profit of language courses, I cordially invite you to an interview with my guest today – Kasia Kaczmarek from the WOW! Holistic Language Center.
Why is Kasia the perfect candidate to dispel your doubts?
Kasia is passionate about languages and the idea for the creation of WOW was born out of this passion. With an initial budget of approx. EUR 100, after eight years of operation the school had 400 students. However, it was only the pandemic and the courageous decisions related to its emergence that brought the best results, and in the first half of 2021 WOW recorded a profit of approx. EUR 10,000 more than in the whole of 2019.
Really WOW! Where did you get this idea from? Raising prices in a pandemic sounds like a recipe for disaster.
And it was a beautiful disaster, and actually, a lot of change happened. Some people gave up our services, new people came and the groups became more intimate. What was most important was that I introduced a completely new language service and the basic value I communicated was saving time and making my clients independent. The course was intensive, lasted 4 weeks, and cost approx. EUR 1000 and in early January 2021 I launched four online groups, which caused the financial results of the company to improve significantly. It turned out that there are people who are keen on a language service that not only gives knowledge but also builds the right habits and the ability to look for language inspiration. This effect in the form of finding people willing to take the course gave me the thought that it was not worth competing on price. If we can communicate to our customers the values we sell to them, we can stand out, we understand what our advantages are and what capital we have, people choose us even though we are more expensive. And sometimes despite this! If we give a specific price, we can also expect a specific group of people.
It sounds like a perfect customer who sees the quality in the course and does not negotiate the price. The question is, how do you reach a group like this?
I have been running my social media in a very specific way for many years, i.e. you will find there mainly photos of me and photos of interiors, photos from the classes we conduct. So we show ourselves in the media as people with certain values. These pictures give a sense to a person that they know they are going to experience something different here. I also often go live to share my knowledge and thoughts. All of this has led me to build over the last few years the image of WOW as a place where brand experience is felt very strongly. So I started to gather around this brand people who are tired of textbooks, exam courses, paired work, which is all that is associated with the classic language course. And I started sharing my experience because I had been learning seven languages myself in places around the world, including Israel and South America. And language school is the result of that. I started doing hours-long webinars where I showed people that the language process is holistic. And I showed them that they benefit a lot by choosing a signature curriculum. There were approx. 10 of such webinars, totaling 30h. This caused a flood of customers running to me, and willing to pay huge money for this experience. And by collecting feedback from participants and showing it on subsequent webinars, I gained new students! A lot of people also came in on recommendations from others. I think a strategy of honestly sharing what works and what doesn’t work, showing myself is very important because people perceive WOW through the prism of what I am. I’ve created a group of people who come to me because they want to pay for quality. And they understand what this quality is all about. And it’s not about showing your team is training. Every team is training! We do nothing but train forever. The idea is to show the customer what their problems you can solve. For example, giving a choice in learning the words that are important to them, not for you. Showing customers that you understand their problems is what helps you win over new customers, often for a lot of money…Phew! I guess I almost talked your ear off 😉
So the key to success in your case was to meet the expectations of customers, not to give them a ready template for learning. More like tailor-made courses?
Kind of. And I don’t like the term either, because it stimulates people who are looking for individual classes. And they are much less profitable and much less effective. The brain learns best in a group. Rather, I would use the term: courses that allow a person to experience that linguistic development is a holistic experience. It is important in such courses how students feel, what their beliefs are, and how they spend their free time. I show how to match language development with lifestyle. None of the adults have time to learn vocabulary during the day, but it can be done in a brain-friendly way in the so-called meanwhile. My students know what works for them, and that’s uniqueness. If you want to have an influence on the prices, you need to have some influence, because you cannot let your business take over your life. Your business is supposed to make money for you. You can’t worry that if you raise prices, people will go away and you won’t have money to pay the bills. If your company is to be for you, then you must have the courage to communicate your strengths and these strengths need to be different from those that are communicated by others.
And you’ve never been accused of your courses being too expensive, not worth the price, or that at the price of this course I can have classes with a native speaker at my home and I don’t have to do anything?
It’s a matter of educating customers. If you want to have lessons with a native speaker and don’t want to have to do anything as a customer, then I can tell you right away that the only effective learning process is active learning. Learning only gives long-term results if you take responsibility for it and that is the first starting point in the conversation. The second point is that a native speaker will never understand you because they didn’t have to go your way. I was even taught that you would never lead someone to the place you didn’t reach yourself. Our customers expect us to understand them. And I often sit and explain these misconceptions about native speakers, about commuting and the customers go like WOW, that makes sense! Have I been accused of my courses not being worth the price? Yeah, a long time ago.
And you’ve never been accused of your courses being too expensive, not worth the price, or that at the price of this course I can have classes with a native speaker at my home and I don’t have to do anything?
It’s a matter of educating customers. If you want to have lessons with a native speaker and don’t want to have to do anything as a customer, then I can tell you right away that the only effective learning process is active learning. Learning only gives long-term results if you take responsibility for it and that is the first starting point in the conversation. The second point is that a native speaker will never understand you because they didn’t have to go your way. I was even taught that you would never lead someone to the place you didn’t reach yourself. Our customers expect us to understand them. And I often sit and explain these misconceptions about native speakers, about commuting and the customers go like WOW, that makes sense! Have I been accused of my courses not being worth the price? Yeah, a long time ago.
And how to respond to such allegations, because I know that school owners face such allegations. And this was particularly exacerbated in the pandemic where the main argument was that there was a crisis, we couldn’t afford a course that expensive.
We have to learn that we are not for everyone and in business, this is the starting point for action. Create your ideal customer avatar. And you wonder what your customer is, what his/her needs are. If you hear such accusations that it is too expensive, it means that the needs of your client are not compatible with the values that you offer. I also happen to say, even during the course: „Listen, this course is not for you, it’s bad that you enrolled for it. This is not the stage when it will bring you value.” Let us have the courage to understand that we are not for everyone.
To be continue 😉