Alright, so as I've mentioned before, I've been in the tutoring business for quite sometime. This was really my first business adventure and I wanted to give out my two cents to anyone who is interested in kick-starting this adventure. You have to like people, know your product and really become a well-articulated person to explain things correctly.
First of all, the first thing you have to do is have the skills and the material to know what you're teaching. This is of utmost importance. As experience serves me well, I've noticed that most people need help with math. Economics and languages are an important second. These were the most requested during the 3 years I've been doing this. There are clients that find there's nothing more frustrating than for their tutor to start learning right along their side. You have to at least be more advanced than them in the subject.
There are two kinds of tutoring services you can do to your business, freelance and entrepreneur
1) First, set up a website, it could be a wordpress, and begin a portfolio both online and in paper. Make it professional looking and keep it simple. Think Steve Jobs minimalism. Now, most people will not find the website unless you do some SEO (search engine optimization). The safest bet is to get someone to do it for you or at least you pick up a book and learn yourself some SEO..
-Ideally you want to have an About me section, mission statement, contact page and recommendations. Recommendations is a huge part of your business, some people ask for them and it's best to have them. Recommendations can be from the professors you had or your employees had.
-Now, the best way to start creating your reputation is start tutoring in niches such as private schools for kids that need help with their SAT's, ACT's and ASVAD tests, these are small niches that have competitive catty moms that love to gossip (remember, women tell each other everything) and give you a word of mouth you need.
2) Long-term clients are way better than pump and dumps and the way to do this is to sell packets of tutoring hours. 10 hours or 20 hours at the same time. What you do with this is save yourself some heartache for flaky costumers who only hire you by the hour. Call it a filtering and screening tool.
- You have some stability that allows you to operate better with your time, because there's nothing like having great clients who take their time and your time serious. You can even set it up in a way that if they flake, you still get paid, and you substract some of their hours from the packet they bought.
-The key here is to know who you're selling to. As much as I would have liked, tutoring college students is a nightmare because they're flakier than a drunk freshman, specially when they wanted to hire by the hour. However, when I've started targeting the packets that my business was selling to veterans of the army, people who wanted to get back to school and were serious about it. These were by far my best clients, when you give them this kind of commitment, they will take it seriously. This also works because they get paid everything by the government if they go back to school, like tuition, books and tutoring.
The best clients I've had were:
- Veterans.
- Kids who are still in middle school (their mom still cares for their education).
- Kids in Private schools.
- People who want to get in the Army
Exceptions for pump and dumps:
Smaller packets for end of the year finals like 5 hour packets work for those who really want to pass the school finals. Usually since they’ll like you, they’ll keep hiring you.
3) Know your staff:
-This doesn’t apply to most freelance, but a good way to make money is having different clients buy packets of 30 hours, charge them 35 per hour and pay your employee 20 an hour. This allows your employees to drive happily to the client's destination, give them a great service and fill a report so you pay them by the hour once they’re complete.
-You also pay them every two week or weekly and let it be in whatever way you think is more convenient for you. The best workers are other tutors who work in craigslist. You give them what they usually get, so there are no complaints from their part and you get to reap the rewards for minimum effort.
-You can even advertise how we do background checks of all our employees and we screen them. Build a small team, usually no more than 5 and send them to do your dirty work.
4) Get involved in sponsoring for Veteran and private schools
-This way people know the kind of service you’re offering. Now, veteran sponsoring are best because it’s a much under-served niche in terms of tutoring. Look for the going back to school mom scholarships that are offered to a couple of moms, and tell them that they’ll get a good price doing this. Get creative, all types of people go to school
5) Reputation:
-You need a solid reputation in the private school niche. The key is that there are many expensive tutoring services, but if you get a kid in Ivy League, offer it in a cheaper way, people will drop their Sylluvan or College-board bullshit services. Hint Everybody hates their tutoring service for being brutally expensive and mechanically boring method. You offer it cheaper with a super good reputation, but with a screening mentality (as in the kid has to behave) they will beat down your door.
6) Advertise
Now there are many ways to advertise. The best one is google, SEO and craigslist. Craigslist has many scammers though, so only accept clients who call. Make sure they call or you call them. The Craigslist scammers will text but never call. Sponsoring and working with veteran groups should give you an advantage over other people and if you can network and find someone who sends you people straight to you on the regular, offer them a cut for every person they send you. You will make clients and it will skyrocket your business.
7) Develop plans of study for clients
Involve creative and innovative ways to teach. The best way to do this is to personalize the tutoring session with what the clients needs. Most people will learn visually, so the best way (in my opinion) is to show them graphically how they can learn. Examples and drills. Now, no one will learn just by watching so have them do drills and make sure they so, otherwise they'll blame you for them not learning. Give them small, but concentrated homework. Kids hate homework, but if it's one or two questions that are hard enough, and you tell them to do it as soon as possible (maybe leave 15 minutes so they get started on it, highly recommended), they'll do it.
8) Most clients will want to meet in their house. If you're a free-lancer, avoid this like the plague and have them meet you at a place near you. You hire people, it doesn't really matter, whatever it's most convenient for them. They're the one doing the tutoring anywhere.
9) When working with children, you want to have an adult supervising you. Just so you or your employees are safe.
10) Have your employees sign an independent contractor so relive from heartache in case they mess up, relieve you from legal problems.
There's so much more to learn that I could spend days writing this, but this should get you started, you will find this info nowhere and the best way to learn about business is by doing, not reading, so if you're interested in this, it is very rewarding.
Enjoy
-Simon
First of all, the first thing you have to do is have the skills and the material to know what you're teaching. This is of utmost importance. As experience serves me well, I've noticed that most people need help with math. Economics and languages are an important second. These were the most requested during the 3 years I've been doing this. There are clients that find there's nothing more frustrating than for their tutor to start learning right along their side. You have to at least be more advanced than them in the subject.
There are two kinds of tutoring services you can do to your business, freelance and entrepreneur
1) First, set up a website, it could be a wordpress, and begin a portfolio both online and in paper. Make it professional looking and keep it simple. Think Steve Jobs minimalism. Now, most people will not find the website unless you do some SEO (search engine optimization). The safest bet is to get someone to do it for you or at least you pick up a book and learn yourself some SEO..
-Ideally you want to have an About me section, mission statement, contact page and recommendations. Recommendations is a huge part of your business, some people ask for them and it's best to have them. Recommendations can be from the professors you had or your employees had.
-Now, the best way to start creating your reputation is start tutoring in niches such as private schools for kids that need help with their SAT's, ACT's and ASVAD tests, these are small niches that have competitive catty moms that love to gossip (remember, women tell each other everything) and give you a word of mouth you need.
2) Long-term clients are way better than pump and dumps and the way to do this is to sell packets of tutoring hours. 10 hours or 20 hours at the same time. What you do with this is save yourself some heartache for flaky costumers who only hire you by the hour. Call it a filtering and screening tool.
- You have some stability that allows you to operate better with your time, because there's nothing like having great clients who take their time and your time serious. You can even set it up in a way that if they flake, you still get paid, and you substract some of their hours from the packet they bought.
-The key here is to know who you're selling to. As much as I would have liked, tutoring college students is a nightmare because they're flakier than a drunk freshman, specially when they wanted to hire by the hour. However, when I've started targeting the packets that my business was selling to veterans of the army, people who wanted to get back to school and were serious about it. These were by far my best clients, when you give them this kind of commitment, they will take it seriously. This also works because they get paid everything by the government if they go back to school, like tuition, books and tutoring.
The best clients I've had were:
- Veterans.
- Kids who are still in middle school (their mom still cares for their education).
- Kids in Private schools.
- People who want to get in the Army
Exceptions for pump and dumps:
Smaller packets for end of the year finals like 5 hour packets work for those who really want to pass the school finals. Usually since they’ll like you, they’ll keep hiring you.
3) Know your staff:
-This doesn’t apply to most freelance, but a good way to make money is having different clients buy packets of 30 hours, charge them 35 per hour and pay your employee 20 an hour. This allows your employees to drive happily to the client's destination, give them a great service and fill a report so you pay them by the hour once they’re complete.
-You also pay them every two week or weekly and let it be in whatever way you think is more convenient for you. The best workers are other tutors who work in craigslist. You give them what they usually get, so there are no complaints from their part and you get to reap the rewards for minimum effort.
-You can even advertise how we do background checks of all our employees and we screen them. Build a small team, usually no more than 5 and send them to do your dirty work.
4) Get involved in sponsoring for Veteran and private schools
-This way people know the kind of service you’re offering. Now, veteran sponsoring are best because it’s a much under-served niche in terms of tutoring. Look for the going back to school mom scholarships that are offered to a couple of moms, and tell them that they’ll get a good price doing this. Get creative, all types of people go to school
5) Reputation:
-You need a solid reputation in the private school niche. The key is that there are many expensive tutoring services, but if you get a kid in Ivy League, offer it in a cheaper way, people will drop their Sylluvan or College-board bullshit services. Hint Everybody hates their tutoring service for being brutally expensive and mechanically boring method. You offer it cheaper with a super good reputation, but with a screening mentality (as in the kid has to behave) they will beat down your door.
6) Advertise
Now there are many ways to advertise. The best one is google, SEO and craigslist. Craigslist has many scammers though, so only accept clients who call. Make sure they call or you call them. The Craigslist scammers will text but never call. Sponsoring and working with veteran groups should give you an advantage over other people and if you can network and find someone who sends you people straight to you on the regular, offer them a cut for every person they send you. You will make clients and it will skyrocket your business.
7) Develop plans of study for clients
Involve creative and innovative ways to teach. The best way to do this is to personalize the tutoring session with what the clients needs. Most people will learn visually, so the best way (in my opinion) is to show them graphically how they can learn. Examples and drills. Now, no one will learn just by watching so have them do drills and make sure they so, otherwise they'll blame you for them not learning. Give them small, but concentrated homework. Kids hate homework, but if it's one or two questions that are hard enough, and you tell them to do it as soon as possible (maybe leave 15 minutes so they get started on it, highly recommended), they'll do it.
8) Most clients will want to meet in their house. If you're a free-lancer, avoid this like the plague and have them meet you at a place near you. You hire people, it doesn't really matter, whatever it's most convenient for them. They're the one doing the tutoring anywhere.
9) When working with children, you want to have an adult supervising you. Just so you or your employees are safe.
10) Have your employees sign an independent contractor so relive from heartache in case they mess up, relieve you from legal problems.
There's so much more to learn that I could spend days writing this, but this should get you started, you will find this info nowhere and the best way to learn about business is by doing, not reading, so if you're interested in this, it is very rewarding.
Enjoy
-Simon
Life is good
