Sarra wrote in to ask:
Hi!
In the beginning of your career and before GenkiEnglish got this big and popular, how did you manage to get people to sign up for your classes and adopt your teaching method? what did you get your motivation from?
Hi Sarra,
What a very good question!
For my classes I started out by placing ads on little cards in the local supermarket. I got my first students there and it was word of mouth from then on.
(Ninja Tip: You usually only need 1 or 2 students to get started. Lots of teachers get started by teaching the kids of friends and again word of mouth takes off from there.)
For getting teachers to adopt my teaching methods I got a mate who had a 1975 campervan and we spent 3 months going up and down the country from north to south stopping at every single school we saw and asking if they wanted a Genki English show or workshop when we came back through. Many said “yes”, the press we invited came and everything went from there!
As for my teaching motivation, it was because all the other schools were just *so* horridly boring and I figured I could do better!
Be genki,
Richard
Totally agree…Word of mouth is the best!
The hardest thing is getting the first ones..once you get started…have fun and get the student to have fun..soon he/she will tell their friends.. parents will talk..and soon this chain will start!
and pretty soon you won’t have any time to fit them all!
Nena
Have to back up what you guys said – word of mouth is everything!!!
Sounds like fun driving around Japan in a campervan – where did you guys sleep? In parking lots? 🙂 Well I’m glad everything turned out OK and we now have your website and teaching tips to use as a result!!!
Lots of parking lots, yep! It’s all blogged:
http://genkienglish.net/tourdiary.htm
Thank you. You are an inspiration.