Home – New › Forums › Other discussions › Out of creative juice to solve a business problem…appreciate some help
- This topic is empty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
December 12, 2019 at 5:23 am #999928Up::0
Hello fellow business owners/managers,
I’m struggling to come up with a long term solution for my small business’s situation.
I have copyright to a set of curriculum that my company has developed for international students, and I partner up with overseas course providers (e.g. such as language centres, tutorial centres) to deliver the course.
There are definitely demand for the course because it targets the preparation of certain test for overseas education.
My income is when there’s an enrolment (directly with them because they are so far away, I can’t centralised enrolment), then I receive a cut from their course fee (At the moment, it’s at 1.5%)
However, many of them have reported no enrolment for a quarter or sometimes even for a year! But keep coming back and want to be the official deliverer of our curriculum.
Is there a way to ensure they report accurate number of enrolments?
I’ve tried the following but was talked out of it by my ‘devil’s advocate’ mind:
– offer a completion certificate (but the course provider can omit mentioning this to students/parents) and there’s no real need for a certificate because it’s not mandatory anywhere
– make part of the course online – such as an end of course test – so there needs to be a student log in for me to track (but dodgy/desperate providers can easily get a student to do it once, and capture all the content – then reproduce paper based test – again students/parents won’t know the different as to which version is legit)
– Centralised enrolment – the providers are spread in Asia in cities far apart – so can’t stop them making students enrol at their campus reception
– control study materials (course books etc) but once 1 student get a copy of the materials, the provider can easily photocopy the rest and make it look officialI would humbly appreciate any advice!!! Thank you in advance for your time.
December 12, 2019 at 9:14 am #1221907Up::0Hi and welcome to Flying Solo [USER=116619]@rerase[/USER]
I feel you need to separate and own some critical part of the course eg, the assessment could be online on your site – you could have your partner’s branding on your site to help them agree with this measure.
Cheers
December 13, 2019 at 6:35 am #1221908Up::0Are all your course materials printed? It feels like your challenge is to make some part of the course uncopyable, and that’s a challenge if everything is printed. Could you make part of the course on video and host on You Tube? You’d be able to check interest by the number of visits.
Maybe also worth looking at some of the online training providers like Udemy or Teachables to see how they tackle people copying materials?
Or maybe you just need to find more reliable partners? (easier said than done I guess)
Good luck!
December 13, 2019 at 11:51 pm #1221909Up::0rerase, post: 268034, member: 116619 wrote:My income is when there’s an enrolment (directly with them because they are so far away, I can’t centralised enrolment), then I receive a cut from their course fee (At the moment, it’s at 1.5%)Many places flagrantly breach copyright rules by photocopying course content (illegally). This is from personal experience when I learnt another language during my childhood.
Your customers that keep coming back despite not paying a cent must have caught on that you don’t have any legal means to pursue them. You are reinforcing their theft by continuing to give them course content for “free” despite receiving no pay.
Perhaps the best way is to make it digital and to charge them an annual fee as well as the 1.5%. Your website could just show a snippet, to view the entire content, they’d need a valid membership/login.
businesstrade.com.au - buy or sell a businessDecember 15, 2019 at 2:43 am #1221910Up::0I like the idea of making the end of course test online too. So all students have to come through you at some point.
Another thing you could try is offering some kind of incentive for higher enrollments (rebates or cheaper pricing). Currently they have an incentive not to report.
Good luck!
DaveDecember 22, 2019 at 11:37 pm #1221911Up::0Hi,
I think your brain is stop on, there is something fishy going on.
I would suggest, do Centralised enrolment and online assessment. Make the assessment mobile friendly, so everyone can do it on their phones.
For the Centralised enrolment make it similar to a marketplace, where the Education Centres, get their % and you get your %. You can set that up to be automatic when a payment is made via PayPal, Stripe etc.
The education Centres can have their own login to manage enrolments, so if someone walks into their reception, they can enrol them via the system as well.
As for the study material, that is harder, as they can simply copy it.
NOTE: Is the material due for update? If so that would be a good time to introduce the new enrolment and assessment system along with the new course material.
You can set up the system using a number of plugins etc for WordPress, Learn Dash is a good one for assessments etc and so is Sensei course – which has a good range of assessment question options and membership, marketplace plugins for the students and educations centres.
Best of luck
Mischelle -
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.