These are strategic questions for your business. We have decided to share our method of finding the next move for our business endeavours. Brainstorm ideas for the following questions to see your business from different perspectives. We do it from time to time to get ideas for our product development. We have included some ideas as examples.
1. From-to. What other markets have this task\problem? What are the ways to solve it? Can we bring similar ways of solving this problem to our market? What will our service look like?
- fitness-clubs, dancing studios, beauty salons, IT-courses
- corporate universities
- professional training of pilots
- MOOC by Coursera, Udacity
- bootcamps
2. From-to. What other markets have this task\problem? Can we transfer our way of solving it to other markets? From b2b to b2c? What will the service look like?
- become an online school
- sell language testing and assessment services
- tailor services for niche b2c markets: teaching kids and young learners, English for special purposes, exam preparation
- sell exclusive online platforms to corporate clients together with learning services
3. 10 times higher price. If we want to sell our services for the price 10 times higher - what do we need? Can we add this?
- To have only native speakers as teachers
- To ensure that our language courses guarantee employment, admission or successful exam results
- To give additional bonuses to our students via networking, community, status
- To render students' knowledge in digital format and measure time and cost for every student to get a specific language level
- To prepare individual learning program for every student
- To have an online platform for blended learning as an additional quality assurance of the learning process
- To have star and celebrity students
- To use cutting edge technologies of face recognition and artificial intelligence
4. 10 times lower price. If we want to sell our services for the price 1o times lower - what can we remove? What will be left?
- decrease the number of teaching hours by teachers and replace them by self-study on the online platform
- decrease rent cost
- conduct topic-based group classes without tight links to time-table and courses
- introduce standard curriculum and courses
- decrease the time between demo lesson and sale
- sell season tickets and packs including family packs
5. 100 times wider. If we want to get 100 times more clients without changing the price of the service - what should we change in our approach? Can we do it right now? What steps should be taken?
- sell our service together with partners and their services
- cooperate with recruitment agencies
- offer cinemas to create an English language movie club as a part of their loyalty program
- invest in content marketing: articles, youtube videos
- translate articles from English for online media and news sites
- create fast and cheap landing pages for important dates and events, attract traffic and gather student leads
- introduce a simple and efficient referral program
6. What can be change inside? Can we replace something in our service for third party or cheaper? Will we have enough value in our service? What will it look like?
- use free of charge services for reporting, mailshots, surveys and landing pages
7. Do less in-house. Can we delegate parts of the process to somebody else? To who? Why will it be profitable for them? What should we change in our service?
8. Change the paying party. Who pays for our service and what do they buy? Can we charge for something else? Can we take money from somebody else? Can we add a new paying party?
Hope this brainstorming script will help you to see the broader perspective for your business in the coming new business season.