Thank you for your interest in my courses.
The quick answer is that I don’t give discounts (scroll to the bottom to find the one exception).
If you are serious about doing well in IELTS, it is worth reading the reasons why I don’t give discounts.
See also:
It has taken me 5 years of non-stop hard work to create the Members Academy, plus 30 years of teaching experience and investment in my own professional development, plus constant investment in the technology that I use to make my skills, knowledge and expertise available to help students all over the world.
This investment has been worth it for me, because I know that students who take my courses will get the score they need in the IELTS test and be able to move on with their life goals. This makes me very happy.
It would be more profitable and much easier for me to go back to my previous job: grading IELTS papers. I can make a very good living from assessing this constant stream of failures. This does not make me happy.
Why do candidates do so badly in the IELTS test?
- they don’t understand the requirements of the IELTS test
- they think they can keep taking the test and improve their score without studying
- they don’t get help from someone who really understands the IELTS test
- they don’t understand how a course will help them
- they think they don’t need a course, (all the information is on Google and YouTube)
- they don’t want to ‘waste’ money on a course
- they bought a course before and it wasn’t very good
Why do candidates ask for discounts from teachers?
- in their country it is normal to ask for discounts from service providers like dentists, doctors and teachers
- the IELTS Test Centre (and the Visa Office, the airlines, the university and the accommodation office) gave them a discount as soon as they asked for one
- they just want a cheap course (they don’t care about the quality)
- they think teachers earn a lot of money
- they think they don’t need to pay the same as everyone else
- they think teachers (especially female ones) should be nice and shouldn’t charge for their skills
- the cost of living is much lower in their country than the teacher’s country, so they only want to pay what they think is a good price for their budget
The problem with discounts
I could easily increase my prices and then pretend that I’m giving you a discount, so that you would feel happier about the price.
I could increase the price of a single course to $56 (still a bargain) and then offer you a 50% discount so that you only pay $28 (the current price).
Many many tutoring companies do this (see my blog about these IELTS marketing scams), but I don’t.
Why not? Because I’m honest.
I am sure that if I used these dishonest marketing techniques that I would sell a lot more courses.
Also, in my experience, people who don’t pay the full price for a course soon lose interest in it, because they consider it as ‘just a cheap course’. They don’t really care if they finish it.
How to get a discount from me
There has to be some incentive for a teacher to want to lose money by giving you a discount.
How will your discount benefit the teacher?
For me, giving a discount means that I can’t cover my costs, so there’s no incentive for me to do it.
So here’s the deal.
- You invest in one of my courses
- You make me a video review
I will then give you a discount on your next course.
Your video review needs to be high quality so that I can put it on my website.
All of my video lessons are high quality. This involves:
- creating slides that will engage the learner at the appropriate level (I paid for a graphic designer to produce my slides)
- recording the video (I bought a professional webcam, microphone and lighting)
- editing the video using professional video-editing software (I pay for an annual Camtasia licence)
- adding subtitles (I pay for a transcription service)
- creating a downloadable takeaway worksheet (I pay for extra Google Workspace storage for all my worksheets)
- hosting the videos (I pay an annual license for Vimeo)
- hosting the materials (I pay an annual licence for a website)
- emailing my students regularly (I pay for an email service)
- providing live lessons (I pay for an annual license fee to Zoom)
If you make just one video following all of these guidelines, I would like you to imagine doing that for 200+ video lessons and imagine how much time, skill and effort this will take.
Only then will you realise why I don’t give discounts.
Please remember that solo teachers are not big companies.
They don’t have a big budget and do everything by themself.
The sooner you stop wasting time shopping for discounts and start studying, the better – for both you and the teacher’s mental health.
