Understanding your client’s needs will put you ahead many of your competitors. Asking casually what they want to accomplish and assuming they just want to speak English is a good start but not enough to understand their expectations. Knowing what exactly it is they want to accomplish will allow you to customize your lessons to make sure you structure the content to satisfy their drive and hunger and of course, to have them keep returning back to you for more. One technique to help you get started with is to use the business analyst technique, MoSCow.
This technique is used to prioritize requirements by allocating an appropriate priority, gauging it against the validity of the requirement itself and its priority against other requirements.
MuSCow stands for:
Must have – or else delivery will be a failure
Should have – otherwise will have to adopt a workaround
Could have – to increase delivery satisfaction
Would like to have in the future – but won’t have now
Discuss with each of your clients when you first meet and also do follow-ups from time to time to adjust for new or revised goals. Take a memo and jot this information down so you can recall each time you prepare and meet with them. Delivering happiness to your customer is best done when you understand them.
This technique can also be used when going over a project that you client wants to discuss, say in a presentation. Have them break it down with this process and see what they come up with and then discuss their reasoning for each.