Part 1

Steve: Yeah, I thought we would just do a little brainstorming here about where we are in The Linguist, and where we need to go. I think we've done a lot of things to improve the website, and we need now to look at the marketing, we need to look at the direction we want to go in our content, so those are some of the things I would like to discuss. In terms of our duties here, I think Mark is the one who's on the system, designing the system, introducing the improvements. Mark is on top of the whole issue of website optimization, so that more people will find us on the Internet; adjusting the design, changing the design, so that more people come to our website and want to come in and want to join; the whole issue of linking with other websites. Now Mark has come up with this new package, which is basically the "Basic with Coaching," which is the annual $399 package. You want to review what we're doing on the website? Mark: Yeah, as far as that new membership level goes, we would have a new level, or we'd change the basic membership level from $20 to $35, which would include a monthly report, and access to the discussions, and there was one other thing-access to your tutoring to ask questions about your content. Steve: Or questions on the English language.

Mark: Right, well, everybody has access to that now, so the only difference is they could ask questions on the "Ask your Tutor" link on the phrase card, they would be able to click on. So that would be $35 a month, and then we would have some kind of a package for a year, and we're talking $399 for a year. Maybe we'll make that adjustment. We may also leave the price higher, and then offer $399 as a special deal, because maybe it's more attractive to people, and it looks like they're getting a break. Right? I think Amazon definitely does that; they have the original crossed out and their price thirty percent cheaper. So maybe we should do the same thing. I think part of the attraction at the seminar was the fact that they then went home, looked at the prices on our site and said, "Hey, that is a good deal." That's why they phoned up today, emailed or phoned up. So there's that aspect of it, and then yeah, just optimizing the website and making the copy on our site more effective at converting people that come. So there's that whole aspect of the Web. Steve: One other thing too, with regard to the whole issue of the design effectiveness and so forth, we have a group from BCIT, British Columbia Institute of Technology, who are going to do some, basically, focus group testing with people of different origins, the student body there at BCIT-Korean, Japanese, Latin American, European, whatever-and they get some sense of how they react to the website.

Mark: Just the student body?

Steve: No, no, not just the student body, including people outside the student body. So that should be interesting. So Mark is going to pursue all of that kind of stuff that relates to the website, the system, the messaging, the packaging, the marketing on the Web, all of that kind of stuff. Okay? I am going to continue to work on the sort of institutional side of things. I had an email just now from this group in Toronto, which is working to help immigrants integrate, and I sent them my package two weeks ago, I had no reply. I finally got a reply, so we're going to try to pursue that. Obviously, we have our one client that we're working with in China. Working here with the BC government, Aboriginal Women's Etc. Ministry, the fellow with the [inaudible] here, a couple of Japanese companies I want to pursue-I want to pursue a couple of them. So I'll be working that sort of institutional side of things, and Jill, we're going to start to keep track of names and organizations, and whenever-as I did just now, in fact, maybe we should set up a marketing email account, or something, so that we're always in the loop as things go out, so that we know what's happening. So that if I'm away, or Mark's away, or whoever's away, if someone is here, they are at least up to speed on what's happening, because I think we have to start putting more of an effort into marketing and sales. I think that David and Jill, both of you, we have to figure out ways that you can get involved in the marketing and sales, because I think now that we have a core group of satisfied users, we have a lot of content, we have a lot of good functionality, and now we've got to go out and figure out how we can get more people to join. One other thing that I have thought about is that maybe we should have our own trainers that we might send to foreign markets, where they could approach companies, whether it be in Spain, or in Japan, or wherever. So we are going to explore with Cap College here, where they have some foreign students, who eventually will go back home, or Canadians who want exposure to those markets, and we may have them go out as a trainer/market developer for us in different markets, whether it be Vietnam, or China, or Mexico, or Colombia, and so forth. Or even in terms of our local market. How can we work with people, get people on as trainers? You know, one thought I had was maybe we should have a program downtown for people who are international students here, graduating from their programs, who are going back home. Some of them want to teach English. We could have a program-learn The Linguist, learn The Linguist system. Even if you're not a native speaker, when you go back to your country of origin, using our system you can be an English teacher. So those are some of the thoughts.