Starting your own tutoring business is an exciting thing. You will probably embark on the challenge with all kinds of dreams, hopes and expectations.
One of the best decisions you can make right from the beginning is to create a tutoring business that is just as unique as you are.
Think about the following ways in which to design your business around your gifts, schedule, and clients. This will help you build a successful long-term business.
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Your Gifts
I believe the number one mistake I see my people making is forgetting to build their business around their own unique gifts. They are so eager to follow my step-by-step lessons that they forget that I tell them right from the beginning to put their own unique spin on every decision they make.
Start your own tutoring business reflecting your personality and your gifts. This is true for the way you name your business, design your business cards, run your sessions, communicate with your parents, and even receive payments. Everything must reflect your unique gifts and talents.
Now, why is this important? For a couple of reasons.
Number one: You are the one starting your own tutoring business. Make sure that you’re comfortable with the decisions you make.
For example: I know one science teacher with an amazing gift for playing the guitar and singing. He help students remember biology and chemistry lessons with his witty songs and musical skills. If you have no musical skills, make sure you do not start your own tutoring business promising to use songs to help them remember the lessons. 🙂
On the other hand, you are a Spanish teacher and have tremendous “Latin flair” and love to dress in bright colours and cook tasty Latin food, incorporate those gifts into your tutoring business. (Invite me over for dinner also please! 🙂 Once a month offer some of your latest choice morsels wrapped up with a sticker describing the name of the food in its place in Latin culture (all in Spanish of course!).
Number two: running any sort of business successfully is difficult enough. Ensure a higher chance of success right from the beginning by making sure your business is a “perfect match” for you AND your clients.
Do you get the idea? Don’t try starting your own tutoring business without making it uniquely your own. Ignore ideas and strategies that don’t match with your gifts and work hard to creatively intertwine your gifts in every part of your business.
Your Schedule
One excellent benefit of starting your own tutoring business is the ability to set your own schedule. This means that you set the hours and days that you want to work. Of course, the more flexible you are, the more opportunities you will have for tutoring jobs, but you can work as much or as little as you want. This means more time for your family and yourself.
I want to warn you about deciding that you will just be “flexible” and go with whatever schedule you need. I highly suggest starting your own tutoring business around your best schedule. By that I mean the schedule that you work best in. You will greatly increase your satisfaction with maintaining your tutoring routine. (since sticking with it can be tough at times)
As an example, when I was teaching I tutored students at two different times: immediately before or after school. It did not take long until I realised the afternoon sessions were a much better match for my personality.
I found myself getting a little stressed in the morning when I was tutoring students in math and science and still trying to think about my lesson plans for the day. I personally was able to enjoy the afternoon sessions much better. A hard day’s work was done and then the tutoring sessions were just pure enjoyment. Make sure to find a schedule that works for you in a similar manner.Side note: I want you to think about two things quickly here. I have the same amount of students before school and after school, and received the same rate of pay for both sessions times. It worked both ways. I simply enjoyed one time much more than the other.
This goes a long way towards ensuring my happiness and ability to endure when the day is long, or other challenging things come up. This is why making these types of decisions up front helps in the long term success of your business. Starting your own tutoring business with the end goal, as well as your overall satisfaction in mind, is the best way to begin.
Your Clients
Choosing your clients is the next step that you need to make right from the beginning when starting your own tutoring business. I know it sounds counterintuitive. But it really is true that you choose your clients, not the other way around. The decisions you make as you design your tutoring business will determine the clients you receive.
Learn to put a positive spin on all personality traits that mark you as the perfect tutor for a certain group of students.
For example, perhaps one of your personality traits is that you cannot stand middle school students. It would not be smart to market your services as tutoring K-12 science and math. Instead it would be better to say something like, “Tim’s Tutoring — specialising in 9th through 12th grade science and math”.
Notice how you are now using your marketing materials when starting your own tutoring business in a manner that has your exact end goal in mind. That goal is exactly how you picture your perfect tutoring business scenario. Even the next tip about setting your own rates helped create a reality that matches your dream AND pays the bills.
Your Profits
The next benefit of starting your own tutoring business is the ability to set your own rates. Not only is this freedom important, but deciding wisely is crucial in designing your tutoring business.
Sure, you could work for one of those big tutoring companies, but when you received your paycheck, you would likely be making a lot less than you would if you were running your own tutoring business.
Just do the math.
For example, a large company will charge the customer a certain amount, say $50 per hour. They pay you $20 per hour and keep the other $30. Therefore, you are making less than 50% profit off of something that you can do yourself, without even working for them. And you are often tutoring 3 to 5 children at a time!
I found it much more enjoyable to charge $35 per hour and tutor one or two students at a time. I made $35-$70 per hour with the enjoyment of easily helping a couple of students with their studies.
This is much better than struggling to oversee the work of many and receiving very little for your efforts. (I am not knocking $20 per hour. That’s good pay for many people. But obviously I think you can see why I prefer running my own tutoring business.)
There are many benefits to starting your own tutoring business. If you find yourself dreaming about a wonderful opportunity like tutoring, I urge you to think about what your perfect tutoring business would look like.
After you have done that, intentionally make decisions about how you will run your business that reflect your gifts, desired schedule, choice of clients, and financial goals. In the end this will make your tutoring business much more rewarding to both you and the clients you serve.