Give First by Mai Ling Chan
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The document promotes Mai Ling Chan, a CEO who offers speech therapy services through her company YappGuru. It emphasizes giving first through her services and expertise in helping clients, and suggests buying her $50 product to look young again. Contact information is provided to learn more about her experience and services.
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Give First by Mai Ling Chan
- 1. Give first.
- 3. Give first. Mai Ling Chan M.S., CCC-SLP CEO YappGuru
- 4. BUY THIS. $50.. WANT TO LOOK YOUNG AGAIN?
- 5. Credibility
- 10. .comwww.
- 11. EXPERT
- 22. WANT TO LOOK YOUNG AGAIN?
Editor's Notes
- Hello and welcome everyone. What an amazing conference this is. My name is Mai Ling Chan, I have been a Speech-Language Pathologist for 10 years and I am a Founder and CEO of YappGuru. I first want to thank you for coming to my session today. I’m so honored to be a part of all of this. I know our OTHER session choices at this time are about BUILDING a software company or start up, and I would be hesitant myself to choose a session titled “GIVE FIRST” that talked about “giving something away” - especially since most of us are in the initial development stages of our businesses and “bootstrapping” is an ESSENTIAL piece of our business plan. So before we get into a philanthropic mood, let’s first talk about what moves us to buy something. It’s pretty safe to say that we are bombarded daily with advertising in the form of pop up ads, emails, billboards, and so on.
- And would you agree that most ads essentially look like something like this… This a product that addresses a ginormous target market… Humans who want to look younger than they really are. Great. So based on this “ad” will you buy this cream? I would say no. But Why not? What’s missing from this ad? How about… Who created this? What’s it made out of? Has it been tested? And the million dollar question … Does it work? Cuz if does I’m getting a few CASES of this stuff!
- What’s missing is the feeling of TRUST that we require when we buy something. How a company builds this trust is different for each of us.
- I trust that Goodyear tires will hug the road when I’m driving, uses quality materials, and for the most part would keep me safe. That is about as technical as I get about tires. They are a company that has been in business for years and as far as I can tell they’ve built a pretty good reputation for quality tires.
- I trust that after all these years, if I buy a pack of M&Ms there’s going to be an assortment of colors in there and they won’t be ALL BROWN. They’ve been around since 1941 and that’s the way they DO it.
- I trust that Sensodyne toothpaste has the amount of fluoride that it claims to have and my dentist recommended it for tooth sensitivity so I bought it. It’s also part of the enormous GlaxSmithKline family of products so I assume it has substantial R&D supporting it’s production.
- So what do you look for in a company? There are several different resources that list the “Top 10” ways to establish credibility for a business and what seemed to be a common theme and definitely what I look for are: Experience Consistency Referrals Personal experience with the product or service - did it do what it claimed? Consistency - can you count on them to deliver every time? Referrals - would you or someone else refer them? To a brand new business owner, like us, with a brand new product out or service there, this looks like “how to do you get a job if you’ve never had a job?” Right? How DO you get people to start buying your product or service, have great results, come back for more, and tell all their friends about it???? How do you establish credibility?
- As a brand new business on the internet back in 2012 we experienced the same conundrum. I was a Speech-Language Pathologist who had a great idea for a business promoting iPads and apps used in special education.
- Although we were able to generate an exciting initial “buzz” about our new site in our niche industry of special education, we lacked the essential component of “expertise” behind the app listings that we were offering. What made the lists of apps “special” in comparison to other app sites other than the keyword search? Why should our visitors believe that an app was worth their money just because WE said so? And so, we re-examined what we were offering and decided we needed to pull in an established “Expert” onto our YappGuru team in order to raise the level of trust in our recommendations.
- So I personally started to reach out to other therapists who had already established themselves as expert reviewers on their personal blogs. These were speech therapists who were working all day, at a full time job, then coming home and creating lengthy app reviews about the apps they were using at work. They included screen shots, tips on how to actually use the apps with clients, and valuable feedback on the settings within the app. And, most importantly, they were including the apps shortcomings, which made their reviews transparent and honest. And they received no payment for these reviews, except for the free app. For example, this is Danielle… tell her story and how she is needing to promote her site, increase her reach. Mary - North Dakota - caseload 25 students vs 100 in Phoenix. She is
- We offered them a win-win situation... Complete a brief app review on our site with a direct link back to the same app review on their blog for more information. This gave them an “Expert status” on our site as well as the opportunity to acquire new visitors to their personal blog with every app review they completed at YappGuru. And they loved this idea.
- So little by little we added more experts and synergistically increased our visitor activity by bringing together our audiences.
- We now have 27 expert app reviewers with a combined blog audience of approximately 35,000 followers so when they share YappGuru news, people in our niche industry listen. And we presented 2 sessions at our national conference for Speech-Language Pathologists last year to about 500 people about iPads and therapy and afterwards we had a line of people waiting to talk to us who told us how grateful they were for the site and how it has helped them identify apps to buy for their clients. App developers contact us requesting to be added to our directory and to have their app reviewed. And people are starting to say they’ve heard of YappGuru in special education app conversations. So I believe that we have now established ourselves as credible experts regarding apps in our industry.
- and we provided information on apps to our visitors for free.
- Now for that big question - have we made money? Actually not much. There is no fee to search for apps, and a whopping 7% Affiliate commission on apps doesn’t add up to a lot when they range from FREE to average $9.99. But this is the invaluable piece. By continuing to grow and build YappGuru, we have built an amazing resource of people who are using apps in their clinical practice and sharing practical and useful information with an entire industry. For Free. And we’ve created value, purpose, and community. We have brand recognition and a solid reputation for providing trustworthy and credible app reviews in the special education niche.
- And in the next few months we are launching an online learning platform specific for Special Education where we will offer courses created by Experts starting with - our current family of YG technology Experts and branching out to all areas including Education, Health, and Psychology. As we work on the software design, our Experts are already behind the scenes creating their courses and beginning the “buzz” around the debut of their personal course libraries, This is where we will monetize YappGuru...
- AND Danielle will get to create an additional revenue stream as she sells her courses as a Subject Matter Expert at YappGuru University - benefitting again, from the visitors that other SMEs are bringing as part of their existing audience and in a broader sector of Special Education rather than her current niche of Speech Therapy.
- Do you have to create an entire website and wait 3 years for your company to take off? Definitely not and I wouldn’t wish my start-up journey on anyone. But I’m absolutely positive that AS you are creating your product or defining your services, you can find ways to connect with your target market: What are some ways that you are currently “giving” and is successful for you? Create something valuable - blog posts, resources, materials, items. Something they need that only YOU can provide. Help them - tips, information, service. Make something easier for them. Give - FREE. No strings attached.
- GIVE FIRST - before you sell to start establishing trust and community around your brand and when you are ready to launch, you will be positioned to present your product with brand recognition and appreciation.