Archive for March, 2010

$40 for $150 off? Such a deal!

Monday, March 29th, 2010

The deal era.  It’s amazing.

We’re the feature today on YouSwoop, one of the many deal sites that have popped up lately.  We’ve sold 140 so far with 10 hours left to go.  We were on Groupon in December and sold over 600.  Compared to today’s Groupon deal for Wendella Boats (19,000 sold and counting) that’s nothing, but for us, we’re happy with our numbers!  As a new business, there are many ways to get the word out, but most of them are extremely expensive and questionably effective.  It’s been interesting experimenting with deals to see what sells and how many people buy.  In the end, the goal is to get people through our door, have them fall in love with us and come back…and tell their friends.

Our Spring session starts next week, and we’ve got Spanish, French, Italian, Mandarin and Arabic for adults.  Our kids’ classes start the following week with Spanish, French and Mandarin.  Whether you’re taking advantage of an incredible discount or paying full price, we can guarantee you that we’ll be thrilled to have you and will do whatever we can to ensure that your experience is great on all fronts.  We still have some spots open, so come on and check us out!

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On our 5th anniversary…

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

I sent the following email out on March 18th:

Hi everyone:

Today is the last day of our Winter session, and I wanted to thank you for spending time with us at Multilingual Chicago.  Today is also the 5th anniversary of Workforce Language Services – our parent company that provides corporate language training and translation services.  I never expected to be a business owner, but little decisions and events over time take you in directions you don’t always expect (which is why I’m no longer teaching linguistic anthropology to undergraduates and discussing issues of language ideology and language obsolescence!).  Even years into my business, I never expected that I’d one day open a language school – I was just looking for an office so we could move out of my cramped basement.  I fell in love with the exposed brick wall, the big windows and the mix of cultures right outside our door, sketched out a floor plan and figured we could offer a few group classes to help pay the rent. And here we are, less than five months later, and Multilingual Chicago has taken on a life of its own.  We’re growing and changing all the time, and we are thankful to everyone that has been involved in that growth.

For those of you that plan to continue your journey with us in the Spring – whether for Spanish, French, Italian, Mandarin or Arabic – please use the code MCSTDNT10 at checkout from now until March 24th to enjoy $35 off your registration.  For those that don’t, we still hope to see you at some point, whether for another language class down the road, a wine tasting event or just a quick stop by to say hello.  If your experience with us has been positive, please tell your friends ($15 tuition credit for referrals!) or share your comments on yelpgoogle or yahoo.  If your experience has not been all that you hoped it would be, please tell me so I know what modifications need to be made.

Thank you for your support, your patience and for trusting us to guide you in your language learning.  I hope we’ll be seeing you again in April!

Warm regards,

Jill

Five years?  Wow.  Love it.  And the more people that walk through our door, the more fun it is for me every day.

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