Relying only on experience outside this country, how-to marketing books, government legal instructions, relatives, and an intuitive exuberance, Nina Velasco has done an outstanding number of things right during her first 18 months in business in the United States. Starting from scratch in a new market, with a new idea, no contacts, and only half the desired capital, she has successfully established the Naples Language Center as a welcome addition to the community.

Her reputation for excellent classes in English as a second language as well as Spanish, Italian, French, and German has, appropriately, spread by word of mouth. But her most telling coups have come from advertising and publicity.

Early on, Velasco discovered the best places to market her center. “Movies are big in Naples,” she says. Entering her second season in 2000-2001, she courageously invested precious capital in a random rotation of advertising slots in 10 of Hollywood 20’s movie theaters. She chose an 18-week run from December to March. Then extended her reach with a 10-week buy of 60-second spots on WGUF Naples Talk Radio from November to January. Next season she expects to repeat this effective combination with one refinement. She will “do more selection in the times that radio ads air.”

Velasco also makes sure the Naples Language Center gets good exposure through a brochure that she mails periodically to potential students. Velasco has utilized everything from membership in the Naples Area Chamber of Commerce to lobby literature displays in ethnic restaurants. Her next step will be community speaking engagements. Along the way she has learned that, movie screens and talk radio aside, marketing channels that are too broad produce negligible results. One instance was placing an ad in a German magazine. Another was distributing literature in new resident welcome packets and tourist welcome stations.

By asking students how they heard about the Naples Language Center helps Velasco keep tabs on what’s working and what’s not. “We’re fully invested with all that we had to invest,” says Velasco, who is halfway through the 36-month proving period for a new business. “Now it’s time to see the results.”

Numbers to date prove that the Language Center concept will work in Naples. Velasco had few doubts, having done her homework and taken a similar center to satisfying success in Brazil, where she grew up in a family of American missionaries. Unlike Florida’s East Coast, where multiple language businesses thrive, Naples Language Center has little commercial competition to satisfy the demand in Southwest Florida.

In the first four months of 2001, Naples Language Center revenues equaled 75 percent of its total corporate income for 2000. More than 50 qualified teachers have resumes on file, and the staff has increased to 12 part-time teachers. The next step is hiring an administrative assistant to relieve Velasco of the paper load and free her up to spend more time spinning creative ideas and teaching English and Portuguese.

Velasco, who is fluent in three languages, gets her greatest inspiration from her students. Recently, a seasonal resident seeking a stimulating mental challenge elected intensive language study as a productive use of his leisure time. He credits the Naples Language Center with “changing his life.”

Aptitude for learning a new language pertains to a person’s motivation. Often the motivation is to communicate with a spouse, and “it’s not a good idea to ask the spouse to teach you,” counsels Velasco. “It’s comparable to asking your mate to teach you to drive.” Other motivation includes travel to a foreign country or, Southwest Florida’s number one reason, the need to use a second language on the job.

English-as-a-second-language classes address the aspirations of 50 percent of the Naples Language Center student body. At $8.33 per student hour, the price for each 60-hour, 15-week curriculum is widely approachable. Teaching Spanish to business owners and managers, individually or as part of corporate training, accounts for another 35 percent. The remaining 15 percent are individuals requesting private tutoring in Italian, French, or German, in preparation for European travels.

Whatever the students objective, Velasco recommends that students take advantage of the synergies and greater learning potential afforded by interaction with a teacher and classmates. “I’ve never known of a single person who learned a language from tape,” says Velasco. “Learning a language is a process. You can’t sleep on a book and learn by osmosis. You must become as a child, willing to make mistakes in always trying something new.”

She notes that opening oneself to correction can be humbling. Ultimately, the student, not the teacher, produces the learning miracle. Forsaking the old-school tradition of unworkable grammar-translation, wherein “so many of us took seven years of classes and still don’t know a thing,” Velasco promises that learning in a more “communicative way” opens the door to fun, less arduous learning.

Last year, people hadn’t yet heard of the Naples Language Center. This year, that’s not the case. Many seasonal residents and visitors made use of the center, and some Southwest Florida businesses are encouraging managers and employees to use the center to learn Spanish or English as a second language.

“Why not provide employees with on-the-job incentives to speak a second language? It could only benefit employees and the business,” says Velasco. She suggests that companies also consider reimbursing employees for language classes as they do other types of tuition. Such training could easily take place off-season in preparation for the annual rush.

If she had it to do over again, Velasco says she would start-up with more capital. Fortunately, 15 months into the business, she succeeded in obtaining a line of credit with a local bank.

And now, Velasco is taking the Naples Language Center on to the next phase — increasing class sizes across the board to a maximum of 12 students and starting group instruction in Italian.

Velasco has taken her personal life to the next level as well. She remarried last February and expects to soon share a new professional name with husband Frank Herrmann, a marine engineer who has been recruited to teach English on behalf of the Naples Language Center under contract with local area businesses.

S. Alison Chabonais is a freelance business writer.