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**** The Solo Sensei Newsletter - Volume #19 ****
May 10th, 2004
Over 6000 readers Japan-wide.
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You are receiving this newsletter as part of your membership in
findateacher.Net. If needed, see remove instructions below.
IN THIS ISSUE
1. FindaTeacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com News
2. Site Upgrades
A. View Last 5 Students Who Gave You Their Contact Information
B. Photos Now Branded with "SenseiSagasu.com"
C. Let Students Hear Your Voice Sample
3. About Your Voice Sample
4. About First Lesson "No-Shows"
5. Reducing the Chances of First Lesson No-Shows
7. Tips/Miscellany
8. Feeback Welcome
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1. FindaTeacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com News
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We've moved. The new findateacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com office is in
Shirokane, Tokyo (address below). We apologize for any slowness in our
responses and in turning on your certified marks during our move.
From our new office, the findateacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com staff will
be better able to handle daily operations and offer higher levels of
customer service to both teachers and students. Meanwhile, Stefan and
Reid (the site creators) can focus more on upgrading the sites' front &
back ends and work all-out to make sure that you have the best possible
flow of students looking at your on-line findateacher.net profiles.
There are on average over 1200 visitors browsing teacher records on
SenseiSagasu.com each day. Coincidentally, on average, over 1200
teachers' contact information continues to be sent out to students
weekly. Currently, 5775 teachers are active while 1321 have their
record status set to "Take a break".
Thanks for taking our survey last month letting us know your feelings
about private on-line teaching via web-cam. Responses were numerous and
overwhelmingly positive. Currently, a couple of the four-letter
language schools offer web-cam teaching services but we are setting up
a way (once again) to cut out the overcharging / underpaying big guys
and give the power (and money) back to the people providing the lesson -
you. The models under consideration are quite different from existing
ones. Things are moving forward and we will let you know through the
Solo Sensei Newsletter (this newsletter) how things are progressing.
Monthly findateacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com parties (4th Saturday of each
month) which started out as full-to-the-rim gatherings of over 230
people (whew!) have leveled out nicely over the past few months to a
pleasant 150 - 180. If you have time please drop in to our
International Pizza Party Saturday, May 22nd (6:30 - 9 p.m.).
Map/Details: http://findateacher.net/iparty.html
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2. Site Upgrades
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A. View Last 5 Students Who Gave You Their Contact Information
From the findateacher.Net Record Control Center all teachers are now
able to view the contact information of the last five students
who chose to give their contact information. Keep in mind that these are *not* the
last 5 students who chose you, but the last 5 students who chose to give you
their contact information.
In case you didn't know...when students order teacher info they are
able to decide whether or not to send their contact info to their
chosen teachers. If the student doesn't provide this info for the
teachers to see, that student's contact info will not be included in
the list of the "Last 5 Students who sent you their contact info".
B. Photos Now Branded with "SenseiSagasu.com"
You may have noticed some writing on your findateacher.Net photo that
you did not put there. It says "SenseiSagasu.com". This might
surprise you if you are a new user and didn't know that
"SenseiSagasu.com" was the name of the students' side of the website.
We did our best to add it unobtrusively to the bottom of the photos.
C. Let Students Hear Your Voice Sample (Optional)
From the Record Control Center (above the photo upload section) you can
now upload a sample of your voice up to 300 k. It will be added to
your findateacher.Net/SenseiSagasu.com record for all students to hear
(and will give you a brief opportunity to display your charming
personality).
To see/use any of these new features (or to refresh) please log in at:
http://www.findateacher.net
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2. About Your Voice Sample
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Once uploaded, a link will appear allowing you to preview it. More importantly though, it
will later appear on the SenseiSagasu.com browse page - making even
more students access your record to hear your impressive teaching voice.
Most standard audio file types (.mp3, .wav, etc.) under 300k can be
uploaded. For now, the file will have to be edited on your own
computer before uploading. Windows users can use "Sound Recorder" or
similar software for this purpose. Mac users can use Audiocorder (or
similar). Both of these and other audio recording software are
available for free trial at:
http://www.download.com
As much as we dislike intruding on your freedom of expression, all
samples must somewhere clearly include the words "SenseiSagasu.com"
(that is, "Sensei Sagasu dot com"). For example...you could get it out
of the way in the first sentence like: "Thanks for viewing my
SenseiSagasu.com profile. Please choose me". You might
consider showing off your Japanese too but remember that many listeners
will be checking to hear a sample of your native language to decide
whether or not to study with you. If you can't think of anything to
say...just read something from your "Comments" section. AND if you
only have a few seconds worth of something to say....that's good
enough.
As with uploaded photos, voice samples:
* may not include contact information (name, email address, phone number,
etc)
* will be reviewed by us before being made available to students
* can be changed as often as you wish
* shouldn't include frightening, insulting, or other inappropriate
content
* can not be someone else (like Bart Simpson or Al Pacino)
Have fun with it!
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3. About First Lesson "No-Shows"
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About once a month we are contacted by an upset teacher regarding a
student who didn't arrive for the first lesson (a "no-show") and who is
unreachable for an explanation afterwards.
In my case, there were a couple of times when I was waiting at the
agreed upon meeting place and had the funny feeling of being "visually
inspected" by the somewhere-nearby unseen new student. After about 15
minutes of unacknowledged waiting I realized that this was a "no-show".
Did they change their mind upon seeing me and leave? Did I need a better
haircut? Better clothes? Better posture? Who knows.
A different time, I suspected that the owner of a nearby English school
was just trying to get revenge on me for entering their market so set
up a fake meeting with me which would surely waste my time and
discourage me.
I later realized that whatever my (probably wrong) paranoid feelings
were at the time, it really didn't matter about these rare no-shows as
long as, over the long run, I just kept a steady flow of real students
(who do show up) coming to me for lessons. Logging in and refreshing
your record frequently seems to be the best way to keep 'em coming.
Remember, "No-Shows" are a part of this business. You probably will
never learn why it happened so if it does, just keep chugging along.
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4. Reducing the Chances of First Lesson No-Shows
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The "no-show" problem, while infrequent, does happen to most teachers
at some point in their stints as independent teachers. While difficult
to prevent, there are a few prevention measures:
A. Make it a point to contact new students after scheduling the first
lesson but prior to the actual meeting time to verify that their phone
number works and to reconfirm their first lesson schedule. (restating
the exact meeting time and place).
Of course, to do this you'll need to get their email address or phone
number if you do not already have them. If they did not give
you their phone number when they selected you, a good way to get it is
to ask for the number during the first contact. You can say you
"probably won't use it" but need it "in case the schedule changes" or "in
case it is crowded at the meeting place and hard to find each other".
B. Ask for laser-guided information. Ask what they look like, what
color jacket they'll be wearing, and precisely where they'll be
standing. Tell them the same about you. Specify station exits by exact
name in both languages.
C. Bring the student's phone number with you. Sometimes what seems to
be a no-show is just a case of standing in the wrong place. Exchanging
cell-phone numbers usually solves this problem.
D. Use the translation guide we made for you:
http://findateacher.Net/handlingcalls.html
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7. Tips / Miscellany
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A. 14 tattle-and-win winners were awarded 5000 yen each
since our last Solo Sense newsletter. Find out how you too
can win here:
http://findateacher.Net/links.html#tattle
B. Don't miss getting a student because your email box was full. High
volumes of junk mail are flooding email boxes worldwide (ours too) and
we are noticing an increase in accounts turned off because of full mail
boxes. Be sure to keep some space in your mailbox so that mail from us
announcing that "You've been Chosen" doesn't bounce back to us and
automatically turn off your findateacher.net account.
C. Whether or not you offer a free trial lesson for students it is
important to let them know that they are allowed to try one lesson (for
the regular price) and then decide afterwards if they want to continue
or not. It helps make them feel like they are not getting locked into
anything and makes trying your first lesson more appealing.
D. If you are not being selected and want to be, try:
- Refreshing your record regularly (log in and click "refresh")
- Changing your photo (ask someone's opinion to be sure)
- Making sure you have enough Places/Stations selected for best
exposure (log in and click "Edit Places/Stations")
- Adding credibility to your record (see how at
http://findateacher.Net/links.html#credibility )
D. Keep your record in tip-top shape (so more students view it). For
tips how see previous editions of the Solo Sensei newsletter:
http://www.findateacher.net/archive.html
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8. Feedback Welcome
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If you have any ideas you'd like us to work on please let us know.
Until next time......Sayonara! Sayonara! Sayonara!
Jake Rollins
Solo Sensei, Producer
Teacher Helper