Why “Selling Learning – Learning Selling”?
There’s a gulf in the language school business between the business people / school owners on the one hand, and the teaching / teaching management /teacher-trainer staff on the other hand.
I’ve lost count of the number of times people have said to me:
“I’m not a businessman” or “I’m not a teacher”
and every, single time I hear it, it frustrates me.
“You can be! You must be! This limitation is in your head, only! You would be a better teacher/business person if you could learn about the ‘other side’ of the business” I want to say. Sometimes I do say it.
But perceptions and self-doubts apart, needs must, and many in this industry ARE both teachers and business people. From the newest teacher offering the the cheapest private lesson in her bedroom, to the grandest and most reputable language school, skilled at both marketing and education, these roles go hand in hand, and ignorance of one of them is a potentially fatal flaw.
Everyone knows of “bad” schools, which are “just” good at marketing and selling. You wouldn’t send your worst enemy there to do a course (or maybe you would..), but you have to admit they’re good at attracting customers.
Equally, we often know of “good” schools which make no money, which are in danger of closure or the death from a thousand cuts of constant penny-pinching. “Don’t the clients realise?” we ask, in despair, “Don’t they know that this is a MUCH better school, and it’s even cheaper!”
In this blog I propose a synthesis, a middle way. This blog is for teachers who want to learn about business, and business people who want to learn about teaching and learning. For those who want to be both teachers AND business people
For would it not be better for our clients and more profitable for us if the “best” schools at teaching and the “best” schools at marketing were one and the same?
That’s why.