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I Need Help Finding my Audience

kautifkautif subscriber Posts: 10 Bronze Level Member
edited April 2016 in Business Planning
I want to offer classes in logic and reasoning. My classes will be structured in such a way to help my students establish a framework for problem solving (whether for themselves or someone else).

I'm thinking about starting off teaching my classes for free either to elementary students or adults.

This is a preemptive comment to a possible reply that I will receive. If your reply concerns your view of the lack of feasibility in teaching children concepts of logic and reasoning, I won't entertain that idea because any subject can be brought down to a basic enough level such that a child understands it.

If I offer my classes to adults, the demand on me is much higher for me to choose a specific audience. Every field has the potential for problems, so I'm having difficulty just choosing one specific audience. If you have any ideas that you think might help in finding my audience for adults, I would greatly appreciate hearing them. Thank you.

Comments

  • AlexYoungerAlexYounger subscriber Posts: 0
    I like this idea a lot, especially about teaching young students about logic and reasoning; I can only think of a few businesses and programs like this. I don't know exactly what kind of program you're starting but I think it would work great for homeschooling.

    Here's my advice: Go to any social networking site, create a fake profile if you need to, it doesn't matter and begin asking around on pages such as home schooling, education, or really any place where many parents get together (because I think this idea has a potential market for parents who don't want their kids to be apart of the brainwashed community).

    Then find some prospects, and ask them these questions:
    1)Have you ever had a problem with X? If they say no, the interview is over, this is not your target audience.
    2)Tell me about a time you had a problem with X.
    3)What would be your ideal solution to the problem? Helps learn the language of what customers are talking about. Don't necessarily have to take their advice.
    4)Bonus Question: Will you pay X for this product right now? It's often that people will say, "Yeah, that's a great idea! But then the idea doesn't seem as awesome when you have to pay for it.

    This will help develop your target audience and may even help you come up with ideas on how to go about doing it.

    And again, I do like this idea; let me know if you need help, I would like to see this idea come to life.
  • AlexYoungerAlexYounger subscriber Posts: 0
    And one more thing. There are generally two kinds of businesses, and they can be referred to as a vitamin business and a painkiller business.
    Both are just metaphors, and they really just mean, products you need, and products you don't really need.
    Painkiller companies don't really have to convince people why they need them, everyone knows they're needed.
    Vitamin companies generally have to convince people why they're needed. This isn't necessarily a crutch, as many of these companies can outperform painkiller companies.
    Examples of painkiller companies, products you need: Uber, which brought transportation to places previously unavailable.
    Examples of vitamin companies, products you don't really need but they're nice to have: TripAdvisor, which is good to have when evaluating vacations.

    Your product may fall in between, to an extent. Education is generally mandatory, so some people may not see the need to spend money on it, although there are few programs that specifically teach this valuable skill.

    I would definitely say that you'll need a campaign that convinces people why this product is needed, not all may appreciate it's value at first.
  • kautifkautif subscriber Posts: 10 Bronze Level Member
    Hey Alex,
    Thanks for responding. I like your idea about going to home schooling forums. My original plan was to offer my classes after school. I'll PM you the structure of my classes and I'd appreciate hearing what you think.
  • kautifkautif subscriber Posts: 10 Bronze Level Member
    Hey Alex,
    Just letting you know. I responded to one of your posts, but you'll have to click on your profile to view it. Basically, it should appear in your news feed. If you aren't able to view it, I'll post it here.
  • AlexYoungerAlexYounger subscriber Posts: 0
    Yeah, I seem to have trouble finding it. It might be easier to message me, or post it here.
  • kautifkautif subscriber Posts: 10 Bronze Level Member
    This is what I sent to you before:

    "As I said before, I was going to give you an idea as to the structure of my classes. There would be a Day A and a Day B. Every student writes down a problem that they're having. Of course, they can choose to be anonymous if they're not comfortable saying who they are. I choose a problem at random. Depending on what my goal is for that day, either I'll demonstrate how I would solve the problem, students would work in partners or groups to come up with a solution, or independently. On Day B, we would go over at least one skill of logic and reasoning that I saw used in our chosen solution for the problem that we addressed on Day A. Then, we would use games to reinforce their exercise of that skill. The skill we would focus on are based on the set of standards that I formulated. And, when I say games, I literally mean board/card games. I compiled a list of board and card games which would reinforce the skills that I'm trying to target. What do you think so far?"
  • ChristopherLordChristopherLord subscriber Posts: 0
    I really like your idea. I pretty much agree with everyone's feedback. Thinking outside the box a bit, could you potentially utilize services like Udemy.com?

    You could create several versions of your courses and present them to a massive audience. I'm not 100% sure about their reporting and analytics, but it may be able to provide some information that you could use to further define your audience.

    Here's an article about Udemy, but you can just do a google search and learn more about it: http://businesstides.com/udemy-the-easy ... rn-online/
  • kautifkautif subscriber Posts: 10 Bronze Level Member
    <blockquote><strong><a href="/community/profile/ChristopherLord">ChristopherLord</a> said:</strong><br />I really like your idea. I pretty much agree with everyone's feedback. Thinking outside the box a bit, could you potentially utilize services like Udemy.com?

    You could create several versions of your courses and present them to a massive audience. I'm not 100% sure about their reporting and analytics, but it may be able to provide some information that you could use to further define your audience.

    Here's an article about Udemy, but you can just do a google search and learn more about it: http://businesstides.com/udemy-the-easy ... ><br />

    Hey, Thanks, Chris. Yea, I think going online is a good idea. I've had some brief exposure to Udemy.

    Presumably, if I were to offer my lessons on Udemy, every student would be able to view the exact same content. That's good, but one element that's really important to me is that students are able to bring up their own problems and I can show them which concepts of logic and reasoning are used to analyze them. That way, I can connect the course content to what is significant to them. That may be a make or break for me. Basically, its how I prove to my audience that logic and reasoning has practical value for each and every one of them.

    But yea, that's something I'll have to look into for Udemy.
  • msgin015msgin015 subscriber Posts: 5 Member
    Research into your competition would help provide indicators of where they are finding their clients, tools and marketing strategies and online check into their backlinks could provide further clues to help get yourself set up.
  • kautifkautif subscriber Posts: 10 Bronze Level Member
    @edward222

    To some degree, I can see the fruitfulness of taking risks and seeing who is receptive to what I have to offer. If they are receptive, I will find more like them. If they are not receptive, then I will go elsewhere to find those who are more receptive.
  • kautifkautif subscriber Posts: 10 Bronze Level Member
    @msgin015

    I never thought of that. That's a great idea. I should be able to market to whoever they market to in the same or similar ways as them (provided that it doesn't require me to spend a lot of cash to do so. I think in several cases, it won't)
  • UniversitiutaraUniversitiutara subscriber Posts: 14 Bronze Level Member
    you should do SMO of your business. social media is best way for promote your business. you can create your business page or profile in social media site with high pr. and post your thought regularly.
    Universiti Utara Malaysia - Global Brand Magazine Award Winner 2016
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