PERSUASIVE MESSAGE Assignment: CASE

You are a soon-to-graduate business student, and you set up your own home-based teachering business that you have operated during your years at college. Youre doing pretty wellso well that youre thinking it would be great if you joined forces with another teacher and set up a legitimate business, operating in an office.

Therefore, youre pleased when you go to a regular small business owners networking event and see that the topic is Joining Forces: Taking on Partners The presentation certainly convinces you its time to both find a partner and rent an office.

At the event, you strike up a conversation with a Math teacher youve met before (you teacher English). You like her, and you know that you both live in the same Vancouver neighbourhood. You think it would be great to share an office with Sarah, but you soon realize she isnt convinced yet about developing a legitimate business, let alone take on a partner to share an office. She not sure she wants to stop working from home. You try to understand what her concerns are. She seems mostly a bit reluctant about how much work it would be and that it would be a long-term commitment. She also doesnt see the benefits of partnership. As well, she wants to know a bit more about the costs.

You decide to write her an email about it ( use email) and try to persuade her to consider the benefits of office sharing without directly asking her if she wants to share. Since she seemed hesitant, youll use the indirect approach in your email. This is not a sales situation. Youll need to do some professional, business-to-business persuading, with a focus on how easy and convenient it would be, as well as a good financial decision. Youll need to show her that youve researched this and all the pros and cons and you simply want to share this information with her.

As you do your research, you get even more convinced that its time for both of you to grow beyond the home office. Since you both work with clients (students) in person, of course a professional office creates a way better impression than having the client come to the house. Whats more, you know that both of you often go to the clients home or business to avoid having the client see your messy house. (And many students dont want to travel somewhere inconvenient an easy-to-get-to location would be a boon.) A real office would save you all that going back and forth to students homes in fact, since some of your students are in high school, their parents feel more comfortable sending them to an office.

Of course, having an office outside the home makes the accounting part of having your own business easierno more having to figure out exactly how much of your home space you use for work and which paper clips you can write off as a business expense. In your research, you find out that lots of people find it harder to be productive and focused working at homeits a bit easier to get work done in an office. Just think of all the times your teachering is interrupted by family members and youll understand.

Your research shows you can rent offices that are completely ready to go, with furniture and equipment like phones and internet and everythingall you need is a computer. Some even come with a receptionist, and you know you both have been thinking about hiring clerical help. And its not that expensiveyou check Craigslist, and you could easily find something for less than $1000/month each. You dont need sign anything long termyou can rent by the month so theres no big commitment.

In researching more benefits, you remember that both you and Sarah have talked before about how you dont have enough space at homethe home office with all your books and lesson plans takes up a lot of room. It would be wonderful to gain back an extra room. You could use it for friends who come to visit or extra storage.

Youre feeling pretty pleased with yourself and confident about persuading Sarah when you remember a final key benefitincreased business. One of the sites you visited talked about complementary businesses sharingand then they can refer clients to each other. Obviously, math teachers and English teachers can do a lot of referring clients back and forth to each other, since most people need both these services. Also, in the long term, you and Sarah could take on other teachers, either charging them a portion of rent at times you wont be using your offices or acting as an agent for other teachers and charging a commission for example, if one of your students needs help in a subject you dont teacher like history or chemistry.

Youll try to get rajni to meet you for coffee and pastries at Lahore, next to the Art Gallery of Lahore on Ali street next Friday to chat about thisyoull pay, of course. If she doesnt feel comfortable meeting indoors, you can get a coffee and pastry to go and sit on benches at the art gallery space across the street or on the patio outside Faubourgs. She can call you to confirm (youd better include your phone number in case she lost your business card).

Now youre ready to write the email to Rajni. You realize itll be a bit longer than a routine email, so youll use document design techniques to make it easy to read (and youll remember the guidelines for persuasive headings and listing). Remember not to directly ask her to share an office but merely to say that you have researched the benefits of office sharing and want to share this information with her. DO NOT SAY THAT YOU WANT HER TO SET UP AN OFFICE WITH YOU BUT THAT YOU JUST WANT TO SHARE THIS INFORMATION.