Langpreneur Podcast – Episode 70
There are many paths to becoming a Langpreneur and people come from many different backgrounds, motivations, and skills. Some adore languages, and usually, they love to teach and see people improve. Pierre-François Métayer hates teaching, but he does love languages and making videos.
So, when in-person teaching became untenable, he moved online and produced a unique and comprehensive course to teach French to Mandarin and Cantonese speakers.
What you’ll learn in this interview:
- P-F’s Story
- The long and lonely road to success
- The content behind the paywall
- Product first – learning to attract an engaged audience
- Struggles on the crowded Chinese platforms
- Tips for Langpreneurs
P-F’s story
Pierre-François has moved house a lot in his life. Born in France, his parents moved to Macau to set up a business when he was just one year old.
He grew up there, speaking Cantonese and learning the Macau culture. It was a bit of a culture shock, then, to return to Paris and have to speak French. Then, more surprises followed with moves to HongKong, and then Beijing, where P-F learned to speak Mandarin.
P-F’s first love has always been acting, so in China, he spent time in the Beijing film academy and presented a Cantonese TV show for Macau TV when he returned to Macau. He loved making TV and videos and learned a lot during those years, but there are so few TV roles for foreigners in China that it proved impossible for him to make acting a fulltime job. So, reluctantly, he decided to move on.
The long and lonely road to success
Pierre-François arrived empty-handed in Taiwan, and decided, with no experience, to try his hand at teaching French. It didn’t go well.
Teaching with no experience and no real passion for the job isn’t fun.
P-F rented an office and began giving trial free lessons. The trials were popular, but his paid classes were not. Students didn’t show up on time, and some asked for their money back.
Eventually, a student complained to the Chinese Taipei education inspectors — a worry, since his school wasn’t strictly legal — but which proved to be the catalyst to P-F’s success.
Pierre-François decided to take his business online as PFM Prod and was immediately happier. Finally, he had aligned his work with his love of languages and passion for making videos.
The Content Behind the Paywall
PFM Prod offers two hugely-detailed courses teaching the French language in Mandarin and Cantonese to Chinese people from all over the world.
These courses represent the massive amount of work that P-F has put into his business over the past few years. They include 130 beautifully-produced videos, each over 30 minutes, audio, PDF, Pinyin, translations and more.
“The thing that is extraordinary is when people pay. When people buy the course… any time it happens it’s always been the same pleasure and surprise.”
Now that the courses are complete, they create a healthy and mostly passive income for Pierre-François.
PF teaching French in Cantonese
Product First — Learning To Attract An Engaged Audience
How much content should you give away, and what should people pay for? That’s the next dilemma for Pierre-François to solve because to run a successful business, you need a great product, an engaged audience, and a way to convert them into paying customers.
He’s reluctant to put any teaching videos onto YouTube these days because each course video took so much work to produce, and being part of a package, they don’t stand alone. Instead, Pierre-François is working on creating entertaining YouTube videos, designed to attract people to his website. There, they’ll find a video showing what’s inside the website and two trial videos for people to see how the course works.
Social media engagement, SEO, hiring staff — these are all things that Pierre-François knows he should learn to do, and these are steps he’ll take towards attracting even more people in the future.
Struggles on the crowded Chinese platforms
Putting your content out on the Chinese social media platforms isn’t easy for non-Chinese residents at the best of times. Lately, it’s become even more challenging.
For example, live streaming is a massive part of the Chinese platforms, but Pierre-Francois says that post-Covid foreigners cannot do it anymore.
That puts foreign language teachers at a disadvantage because it’s much harder to be noticed among the thousands of live streaming Chinese teaching languages on Bilibili.
What’s more, to make money on Chinese platforms, you need a Chinese bank account; another obstacle to success.
You can still get views on the Chinese platforms, but the young audience is often not receptive to foreigners. You may post a video on YouTube and hear nothing but positive comments. However, a similar video on Bilibili can attract a wave of negativity.
To add to the confusion, YouTube is blocked in China, so Chinese people can’t see your YT content unless they use a VPN.
You do need to take the Chinese culture into account too. For example, with humour, the Chinese don’t tend to laugh at themselves or others, the way westerners do.
It’s also essential to make your teaching videos extremely clear and detailed because Chinese people are often reluctant to ask questions when they don’t understand.
P-F’s tips for Langpreneurs
Work… work…work
Don’t be afraid of working 10, 12, 16 hours a day because you must work every day if you work for yourself.
If you work, the money will come
You are not proportionally paid for the work you put in. it will come over time, but you have to be prepared to work and sacrifice for your “baby.”
Don’t be afraid to fail.
Get help when you need it
“You cannot be alone all the time. You need to have people around you who can do things you cannot. Surround yourself with good people and your product will go faster.”
Contact
YouTube – pfmprod.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0HDdli4ZolWXcD_CN3saKw
歡哥法文- PFM 線上法語
Website https://www.pfmprod.com/
