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Back To School – Getting Tutor Students

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school-busThe month of August is going to be all about getting tutor students for your business. The beginning of the school year is a good time to get new students and grow your business.

We’ll be giving you at least a tip every week, some will be for those who have tutor businesses already, others will be for those that are just starting out.

You should already have the school calendars for each of the schools you have tutor students. It is also important that you know when students will be getting report cards.

We have a couple of new specials on our website, you can find details for both of them here.

http://www.cleverapple.com/special.html

I would like to encourage you to join us in the free Q and A Webinar that is coming up in August.

Ideas for getting new tutor students –

If you’re just starting –

Everyone started where you are now (at the beginning). If you new to our site, we like to focus on long term tactics that continue to work, year after year.

You should know your schools – you should know everything you can about them. Sign up for their newsletters, facebook pages.

We’ll pretend for a moment that I tutor high-school Math. The teachers that I want to focus on are those who tutor Freshman Math – why because if we get students when they are beginning, we can usually keep them until they graduate. Most schools have websites and have a list of the teachers and what they teach. Use this list to find them on Facebook. Remember you don’t want to stalk them, but you do want to introduce yourself to them. In the search box of Facebook, you can search for the name of the teachers. Friend them or follow them.

The last thing I want you to do this week is to make you a facebook page or a website (or both) details on doing that can be found in the next section.

If you don’t have business cards – you’ll need some – check out this video for more ways to get your first student.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULnVM9oZDZk

If you’ve had your tutor business for awhile –

Important note: Even if you’ve just started your tutor business, I’m sure you’ll get something out of these tips for vets.

You should have a list from last year of the students that will want your tutor services again. You should contact them, reminding them of when you’ll be tutoring for their student. Enclosed with the note (or phone call), tell them you’re looking for more students and offer them an incentive. The best incentive is a free tutor session or something similar. The easiest customer to sell is one that is already sold to, and these recommendations are gold, because they’ve already told the prospective customer how great you are.

A reminder, every new student you get, you should give them the same option, and if they don’t give you a referral, remind them. The best time to do that would be when their student does well on a test or gets on A on their report card, when they normally would have gotten a C.

You want to plan a bit for the upcoming semester to. Find out when the first grading period is, you want to really hit it this year. I have found that is the time when I’ve gotten the most new clients. Why? People begin to realize that maybe they aren’t doing as well as they should be doing.

If you tutor college, a good time to do a blitz is after the first couple of weeks of school – after they’ve had their first test. We’ve talked about doing some blitz things before, and we will do it again.

Do you have a website, or at least a facebook page? If so you’re set for next week, if not then you need to get busy. The easiest thing would be to create a facebook page – we’ve talked about it before. You can find the link here –

http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/facebook-business-pages-and-follow-ups/

If you don’t have one, and would like for us to build you one, we do facebook business pages for $49 and normally have them finished for you in 24 hours. If you’re interested in that send us a note info@cleverapple.com – in the subject put I WANT a FACEBOOK page, and we’ll send you payment details and what we need to have for you. That is a discounted price and Is good until the 15th.

Useful URLs – Our Blog – we have 250 blog posts, most of them related to run a tutor business. You should check it out. http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/

Quote – An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin

Follow us / more information.

You can find much more information on our blog. Just use the search box and type something in, you may be surprised at what you find.

http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/

or find us on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clever-Apple-Tutoring-Business-Help/186004714761452?ref=hl

Links to getting Tutor Students

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News – A big welcome to our new subscribers.

Getting New Tutor Students –

We continue today with some more links to older content. Again these are all ways you can get students for your tutoring business. As always if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to send us a note.

1.    http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/is-there-a-market-for-tutoring-where-i-live/

2.    http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/staring-a-tutor-business-figuring-out-your-competition/

3.    How to start an Affiliate Program for your Tutoring Business – Creating an Affiliate Agreement

4.    Adding Affiliate Programs to your Tutoring Business – Discounts of Supplies

5.    Places to Find Affiliates for your Tutoring Business

6.    How to get your first tutor client – part 1

7.    How to get your first tutor client part 2

To Do List for the Week –

  1. Go thru the list of links in this week’s issue.
  2. Work on choosing at least five things you can do this week for building your business.

Getting more tutor students from the Mall…

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Finding tutor students at the Mall

Finding tutor students at the Mall

Today we have a tutor promotion tip that is a bit outside of the box. Sometimes it is good to do something different. Remember if something works, keep on doing it, if it doesn’t then try something else.


Next issues will be September 10th and 24th but we’ll be posting on our blog most Thursdays.

Summer has flown by and soon it will be my favorite time of the year. I love fall for a variety of different reasons, the big one is football. Fall is also prime time for finding more students. I’ve talked before about how that the time especially around when students get a first test grade is crucial. Here is a list of some other times when you want to focus hard on getting students.

  • Beginning of the school year.
  • After the first test grade / paper grade.
  • Mid terms
  • Near the end of the semester.
  • Between semesters.

The more focused your message is, the better. Example: If you’re teaching Math, a good ad might look like this.

Failed your first Math test. Ace the next one with our expert Math instructors.

If you’re using a Facebook targeted ad, send them to a page that gives details of how you can help them ace the test, include a discount that is unique for that ad and send it.

I had an idea about a promotion in the shower the other day, some of my best ideas come from there. This idea takes a bit of time and effort. I’ve tested most of the other ideas on our site, this one I haven’t.

Step 1 – visit the mall. You’ll want to pay particular attention to the vendors that are in the huge hallways that are between the stores. You know the ones that sell all kinds of different things, but they have a counter and they normally sit in a stool. Most of the malls I’ve been in, have them.

Find some of those vendors that cater to people (or the parents of) you would tutor. Since school is most likely in session, or will be in session soon where you live, you’ll want to go after school.

Example: We’ll say again I tutor high school math, all grade levels. I see that a whole lot of people I could tutor are gathering around a booth that sells cell phone accessories. Another vendor that they seem to flock to is one that sales remote control helicopters.

Step 2 – the approach. When the vendors aren’t busy, approach them. You’ll only have a few minutes to either win them over, or they’ll tell you they aren’t busy.

You: Are you the owner?
Them: No

You: Does he usually work mornings or afternoons.
Usually they will say when they work. I’ve found that owners (I always talk to business owners from a variety of businesses. You can learn all kinds of things) most of the time work in the mornings.

If they work in the mornings, go back in the morning. If you’re talking to the owner, continue.

My name is …. I have a tutor business… name of the business and I would like to pay you a hundred bucks to help me advertise my business.

The goal is to get a couple of new students.

Them: How.
You: I would like you to hand out brochures and biz cards to potential customers. They can fill out a form, drop it in a fish bowl and they could win tutoring for a month. My guess is that at least half of the people that you ask will agree.

You’ll need –

100 brochures – focus on the time of the year (like just after the first test). Make sure it has your phone number and other contact info (FB pages, websites, etc.). In the brochure put the basic rules and where they can find the official rules at on your website. Also in the brochure tell them how they’ll be notified if they win and even if they don’t win you’ll be contacting them with an offer.
100 business cards –
150 sheets for your contest – on the sheet have.

Name__________
Phone ______________
Email _______________

Age of student___________Students name

School _____________

 

Something to put the contest entries in.

A place card that explains the contest – you can use a piece of card stock – you can fold it in half.

IMPORTANT: Make sure your contest has rules – make sure they follow all the ‘official’ guidelines. I’m not a lawyer, but here are some tips – https://www.rocketlawyer.com/document/contest-rules.rl

Tell the vendor what kind of students you’re looking for, explain the conditions for you giving them the money, if you want you can draw up a simple agreement. Explain again the classes that you teach, the grade levels etc., make sure that some of his customers would be good candidates for tutor students.

When the agreement is made, deliver the supplies to him or her. Give the vendor your contact information and I like to give them half of the money, get a receipt, tell them they’ll get the rest of the money when you come back.

After the contest, choose a winner. Then create a telephone script and contact the other entrants.

A deal – in our online tutor guide we talk quite a bit about using screen capture software to create content that people can view over and over again. Most screen capture software is expensive. Video Motion Pro has a ton of features and is less than a hundred bucks. Click here for details.

I hope you have a very busy tutor season. As always any questions, comments, suggestions please don’t hesitate to send us a note.

Follow us / more information.

You can find much more information on our blog. Just use the search box and type something in, you may be surprised at what you find.

http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/

or find us on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clever-Apple-Tutoring-Business-Help/186004714761452?ref=hl

Tutor 101 Part 5 – A website and getting more students for your tutor business

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5

5 (Photo credit: cokeisit7)

Today is supposed to be the first day of spring. Next week we are supposed to have snow here again. I had a great weekend. Our family went to the Winter Jam concert in Lexington and had a wonderful time. By the way, like I always do I was thinking of ways to get some more tutor clients if I had a business in Lexington. You can do it for any large even that you have in your hometown. I’ve included some ideas for that in a section below.

We’re working on revamping our Online Tutor Guide, we should have that finished in the next month or so. Also I know this has nothing to do with tutoring but I’ve just finished writing my ninth book – it’s a Christian Thriller – details if you’re interested can be found here.

http://booksbytim.com/

Tutor Business 101 – Part 5

If you’ve been following our series, you should now have at least one tutor student. If you don’t take a step back and review those past blog posts / newsletters. You should also have created a Facebook page, have a posting schedule and have a few friends on your site.

You have probably spent less than $100 so far. The next thing I would recommend would be to build a website. We want to do this for a few different reasons:

  1. New clients – this comes from clients being able to find out more about you. They go to your url on a business card to ‘check you out.”
  2. Expand your advertising – see above, including your website on all your advertising gives you a few extra moments with a prospective client. When they reach the website they’ll know more about you, what products and services you offer and how much you charge (helps to filter potential clients).
  3. It’s an asset – a website is worth something, when / if you decide to sell your business, or get a loan to expand it.
  4. Allows you to connect with your customers and future customers much easier.

Building a website isn’t as hard as you think. We’ll be talking more about each of the steps in the weeks and months ahead. Your first step, if you haven’t done it yet is to get your first tutor client. Beginning with our next issue we’ll be talking about building one. Today’s lesson will be about doing some research.

  1. You should already have a list of your competition. Check out to see if they have a website.  Those that do you’ll want to get as much information from it as you can.
  2. Check out other tutor’s websites. Just go to Google and type in “math tutor” or “your area tutor”.
  3. If you don’t have a logo yet, you’ll want to work on creating one, remember it is the branding part of your business. There are many different ways to create a logo. You can do it free, or you can hire someone to create a logo for you. When I started my business I used a free logo creator and I’m sure you could to, if you wished. One of my favorites can be found here – http://www.logomaker.com/
    But there are many others online. Just do a search.

As always any questions, send us a note, or post a comment on Facebook.

Finding tutor students at large events.

First you need to find any big events in your town or city. I’ve already talked about being involved with any school functions.  A great way to find out future events is to watch your local newspaper and websites. You’ll want to pay particular attention to events that you think students you tutor would attend.

Example – for the event I went to, there were a ton of high school students. If you tutor grade school a good example would be a circus or something similar.

You’ve found an event, now what?

Directly sponsor – this could be very expensive. Like all forms of advertising you want to think about what your return on investment would be. The concert I talked about gave most of the attendees a goodie bag. If I had a product in the goodie bag, what kind of thing would I want to give them.

For any of these types of advertising you want a chance to get their name / phone number / email address / find out if they would be a fit for your business. If I tutored math, I would have included a postcard with the most difficult math formulas to remember. On the card I would have said somelike – For more free tips make sure to check out mywebsite.com. We’re giving away a (list your awesome prize).

Use your imagination. If you don’t want to spend the money on a sponsorship there are still ways you can promote your business – you’ll just want to make sure you aren’t doing anything illegal.

Reminders –

Tax day is coming soon. You should by now have a good idea on what you’ll be owing (or getting back). Don’t forget you’ll need to pay what you owe and your first of four payments for next years taxes.

Useful URLs –

Logo tips – http://www.creativebloq.com/graphic-design/pro-guide-logo-design-21221

Some branding basics – http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/marketing/a/brandingks.htm

Quote -  The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it. – Debbi Fields

Follow us / more information.

You can find much more information on our blog. Just use the search box and type something in, you may be surprised at what you find.

http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/

or find us on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clever-Apple-Tutoring-Business-Help/186004714761452?ref=hl

Getting More Tutor Students – Tutor lists and asking for referrals

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English: Photograph of author Robert Louis Ste...

English: Photograph of author Robert Louis Stevenson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

News –

Today and in the next few newsletters we’re going to be talking about ways for you to get more tutor students. If you don’t like our topic please let us know and we’ll change it. After all, this is your newsletter. We’ll give one promotion tip for those of you starting out and one for you who have a few tutor students. I’ll be using methods that have gotten me the most students first and go from there.

Starting Out – Get on the tutor list

You want to get on the tutor list of schools in your area. Most schools have these, and if they don’t you’ll usually approach the same person in order to get on the list. You’ll want to talk with the guidance counselor.

First Contact –

You should have the schools number, call the school and ask to speak with the guidance counselor. It goes without saying, when you speak with them you want to be courteous and professional. When they get on the phone, remember especially during the beginning of the school year they are swamped with work. Ask them if it’s a good time to speak with them, then ask them how to get on the tutor list. They’ll then give you instructions on how to do it, make sure you write them down and then repeat it back to them. Thank them for their time.

Follow the instructions. They are slightly different in every school district. Most of them will ask a few of the same questions.

What do you tutor – you’ll want to list the subjects you’re interested in tutoring.

Age groups/ grades you want to tutor.

When you can tutor and how much you charge.

No matter what the procedure, the day you call them you want to write them a nice personalized note, thanking them for their time and the opportunity. You’ll want to mail it out at the latest the day after you speak with them. Enclose your business card and a summary of what we listed above.

A few Tutor Students – ask for referrals

If you already have some students you’ll want to ask them for referrals. The students you have are already in a class you’ll be tutoring in. You should create a brochure or a hand out to give them and you want to let them know if they send you a referral then you’ll be happy to give them a free tutor session.

Inspiration – Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Online – http://www.kitzkikz.com/flashcards/

A free flash card maker you can share with your students.

Follow us / more information.

You can find much more information on our blog. Just use the search box and type something in, you may be surprised at what you find.

http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/

Hope you have a wonderful day.

Tips for closing the sale – Getting more tutor students

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Garden with some tulips and narcissus

Image via Wikipedia

News –

Hope your week is going well. It feels like it is Summer here. Springing forward is always a rough week as we try to get our bodies adjusted to the new time… kind of like jet lag for the whole week.

Today we’re going to talk about closing the sale which is an important part of your business.

5 Tips for Closing the Sale

You have someone who is interested in your tutoring services. The first time you meet with parents to close the sale it will be difficult. In our tutor guide we give you a script to follow. The first time you do this, it will be difficult. The hundredth time you do it, you won’t even think about it. Here are some tips to improve your conversion rate.

No matter how you begin the conversation there are a few things you’ll want to make sure you find out.

You’ll want to make sure you find out exactly how they found out about you, this will help you determine which advertising is working. We’ve talked about using different discounts to track your ads.

  1. Make sure you’re meeting with decision makers – this is usually the case but not always. You’ll want to make sure you’re meeting with people that can give you the go ahead to get started.
  2. Believing price is the issue. Price is in your mind way more than it is their mind. Price is only the issue 30% of the time or less. Where’s the value?
  3. If you make a sale and get a new tutor student you’ve earned some money. If you make a friend, you can earn a fortune. Build relationships and you’ll build your business.
  4. They have probably researched your competition – don’t compare yourself to them, instead differentiate yourself from, the competition. Explain to them how you’re different and why it works.
  5. If you’ve been in business a while, use concrete examples of how you’ve helped other students. How did their grades, study habits, test scores improve.

After the meeting make sure to jot down what you did well and where you stumbled. Make sure you also note how you’re going to follow up with them. Even if it wasn’t a sale, sending a nice thank you card will help you stand out from the crowd.

The opposite of blame is responsibility. The more you blame price, circumstances, and other people for your inability to make a sale, the more your income will suffer. The first step to mastering salesmanship is to accept responsibility for what happens, learn from it, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Resources you can use –

On 60 minutes this past weekend I saw an interesting segment on a guy who built a site based on video tutorials.

You can check it out here – This site is awesome and it is totally free – and there are over 130 million lessons. Yes you heard me right. 130 million. Here’s the site –

http://www.khanacademy.org/

So how could you use the site to help build your business?

If you tutor online – you can watch segments with your pupils, take questions as they have them and then create quizzes / worksheets / tests based on the content.

If you tutor offline mostly you can give a couple of segments as homework or you can watch it during the tutor session as well. This would work really well if they have a specific area the student is having trouble with.

You may have missed this –

Getting More Tutor Clients – Tuesdays Tutor Tip

Business Pages for Facebook and the Timeline

An easy way to get tutor students and a great tool for scheduling

By: comment

Tutor Marketing

Tutor Marketing

I know it’s been a while since we’ve sent a newsletter, it’s been a busy summer for us. Today we’re going to start a series over the next four weeks that will help make sure you have a full house when you start tutoring this fall. I realize that some of you don’t tutor students that are in school, you can use these techniques as well, you just will need to tweak them a little bit. These tips are for those of you who tutored last year.

Email past students –

Our goal for this process is to fill up our tutor slots for the next semester / year. Figure out now how many tutor students you’ll need to be able to start the school year with a full boat. Next create a list of your tutor students from last year along with phone numbers, print out that list. Make some notes of students that will no longer need your tutoring and students that have confirmed their tutoring for next year.

  1. Contact the students that have not signed up yet. We’ll want to offer some kind of incentive if they sign up this week. This could be a decreased tutor price or something extra. Here is a sample script – modify it as you see fit. Good Morning, I’m the owner of Clever Apple Tutoring, we tutored Johnny last year and I was wondering if I could speak with you for a few minutes. [[ if it’s a bad time, figure out a good time and call them back ]] Johnny did well last year, we helped him go from a C to a B+ in Math, we’re working on getting students scheduled for the new school year. This week we’re offering 2 weekly sessions for $50 for the first month or 1 weekly session for $30.00 for the first month. After the first month we’ll charge you what we did last year. This offer is only available this week, we have Mondays and Weds available from 6pm till 9 pm, which slot would you like. – They will either go for it or not. If they go for it, sign them up, if they don’t thank them for their time and then say the following.Do you know anyone that might benefit from our services? We’re offering a $50 Amazon gift card if you introduce us to someone and they sign up with one of our tutoring programs. There is no limit on how many gift cards you can get. Do you know anyone that could benefit from our services? If yes then fill out the info below. If no then remind them that the offer is ongoing and if they hear someone during the school year that needs help, give you a call.
  2. Prospective students name –
    Parents –
    Subject they need help with –
    Grade –
    Contact info – Phone / Email / Facebook page
  3. Continue through your list of old students that didn’t sign up. Did you fill up? If not then go through the students that have already signed up. Ask them how their summer is going, remind them of the days / times that you’ll be tutoring their student and then ask them about any students they may know.
  4. Now call the folks – prospects. When you call them –
  5. Introduce yourself
  6. Tell them why you are calling. Who refered you, how you can help their student. Ask them what their child had the most trouble with. Let them know that you have a page on your website devoted to that subject / topic. Offer to send them an email with the link, also offer them a time limited discount.
    C. Give them your contact information if they don’t sign up, if they do sign up, do the happy dance and go to the next person.

 

Hopefully this helps you and you at least get a couple of students, next week we’ll talk about another way to get more students.

To do:

Find out the dates of back to school bashes. Many schools have them, get some firm dates for when this is going to be, a school calendar from each of the schools you’re tutoring and touch base with teachers / guidance counselors that you have relationships with.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We have discovered a tool that we’ve been working on implementing. We have been super busy, but we do plan on using it and have a tutorial video that we created – you can check it out below. The cool thing is that integrates with Paypal and Stripe – you don’t really even need a website to use it, but it does now integrate with Word Press. The best thing is that it takes the hassle out of scheduling. You have a new client that needs some extra time, send them to a page where they can pay and schedule the session.

The are running a special for $97 for the year that lasts till August 3rd. Click here for details and to sign up. [that is an affiliate link]

How to deal with tutor cancellations

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Dealing with tutor cancellations.

Dealing with tutor cancellations.

I hope you and your business are doing well. Today we’re going to talk about a problem that I think we all encounter at one time or another – missed tutor appointments.  For those of you whose school years are winding down congratulations, there is still plenty of work to do getting your students ready for finals or to turn in those last papers. We also talk a bit about motivating students. If you have something specific you would like for us to talk about, please let us know. This is your newsletter.

By popular request we have created some additional ad plans – you can check them out here. http://cleverapple.com/grow-your-tutor-business/

A better business.

We have all experienced this, you have your tutor slots filled for the week. A student calls a few hours before their next tutor sessions and says they can’t show up for whatever reason. You don’t have time to get another student for that time slot, so you’re out how much money you would have made for that time. Let’s pretend you make $20 a session. If it only happens once, that’s not a big deal. But what if it happens once every week… for a year. Then you’ve lost $1040. Here are some suggestions to keep these absences to a minimum.

  1. Let your students / parents know when they sign up what your policy is. When they sign up with you, they should be signing that they understand the policy as part of the things they are agreeing to.
  2. Stick by that policy. If you let it go for one student, the others will hear about it.
  3. Adjust the policy as you grow and learn about your students. Example, if you find that everyone leaves for spring break, then make a specific note about that in the policy.

Ideas for the policy –

  • Allow for at least one absence for emergency / sickness etc.
  • Make a time frame for cancellations that can be excused and a time frame when the absence wouldn’t be.
  • Detail what happens with the unexcused absence – is it counted as a tutor session / half a tutor session?
  • How are the missed sessions made up or can they be made up?

I have run into this problem with some of my NCLEX students. I have found most students come for all of their sessions, and some students are habitually absent.  I’m still working on creating a policy, when I have it complete I’ll make sure and share it with you. If you have one you would like to share with us, please put it in the comments.

Getting Students –

Summer is approaching – here are some ideas for starting a program.

http://cleverapple.com/tutor-tips-creating-a-summer-tutor-program/

Part 2 – http://cleverapple.com/creating-a-summer-tutor-program-part-2/

Part 3 – http://cleverapple.com/creating-a-summer-tutor-program-getting-the-word-out/

 

Business Tip –

Take a survey of your tutor students to find out who will be with you next year (and who won’t). This will give you an idea of how many students you need to get this summer.

Reminders –

As the school year winds down, now is a great time to get testimonials from your current students. Ask them or their parents how you’ve helped them.  Get permission from them to use their comments on your social media, website, advertising etc. Let them know that you won’t give their full name, etc. for privacy reasons.

Example : GW from Hazard says this about our math tutoring. “My son had a hard time with word problems at the beginning of this year. He has improved in math from a D to a B and he love’s how Tim tutors. “

Enjoy your week!

Outlining your Tutor Course

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Outlining your course

If you didn’t catch last weeks post – you can find it here – http://cleverapple.com/kajabi-review-for-tutor-productions-create-tool-for-creating-your-educating-masterpiece/

Today we’re going to work on outlining your course, this is the first step in the process. Once you get a good outline, then you can begin to work on creating the content for the course – which we’ll talk about next week on our blog.

  1. You’ll want eight to twelve sections. Think first of the end goal you have in mind then break that don’t into steps that someone would need to take in order to achieve it. Example if someone wanted to ace their SAT math score, what types of problems would they need to know in order to pass. You’ll first want to jot down just the topic. So in our example we would put Geometry – although we could probably break that down a bit. If you have more than 12 you’ll want to combine the items. You’ll be providing one of these sections each week. If you have less than eight then you’ll want to break some of those you have into parts.
  2. When you have the list, no go into each item and list things you’ll need to cover for each section. You can break these into even smaller bits if you need to. Do this for each section.
  3. Now put it aside for the day. You’ll think about it more than you realize, so make sure to jot down any notes you come up with.
  4. Review courses that are already online – you might have to purchase one but normally these courses have an outline of what they cover. Did you forget anything, add it. Also note of additional things that you covered and use it when you create your sales page.

Next week we’ll talk about how to take that outline and create your course with it.

Getting Students –

Before you know it will be tournament time – for basketball season anyway. Advertise in one of the schools programs in your area. Make sure to offer a unique discount and make it easy for them to contact you – give them your phone number and your website. Also give a time limit in your advertising. Make notes of the time limits and discounts in your notebook.

Business Tip –

Now is a good time to think about what you’ll be offering this Summer for your business. If you’re going to be using students to help (either high school or college), ask the teachers to recommend a few students and then contact them about a job.  Here are some good links about hiring someone.

http://cleverapple.com/hiring-employees-for-your-small-business-tutor-business/

 

 

Enjoy your week!

Additional Income – Creating a Course for your Tutor Business (part 1)

By:

A better business.

So I want to change up the focus a little. We had a couple of questions from the past couple of posts / newsletters about how we create the backend for our NCLEX website. Since our blog and this newsletter are all about providing you with information that you want, that’s what we’re going to be talking about for the next few weeks. Today we’re going to talk about should you create a product or not. Creating a product, one that people log into and learn is not an easy process, the good thing is when you have finished it, then it is done and you’ll only need to update it. The NCLEX course – we’ll take a closer look at it next week on our blog, took us about three months of working 5 or 6 hours a day to complete.

We update it every few months, and we do the tutoring for it now. Has it been worth it, we’re still working on it. This summer we should break even, although this week we’ll be starting an ad campaign for one of the aspects of the site, and if it goes well then, we’ll break even before then.

So, it is important first of all to make sure that you actually have content that would make a good course online.  The history of our NCLEX course is a long one. We didn’t start off with the current one, first we created a Math course… and it flopped, then we made a flashcard course… another flop, then we built our NCLEX course and it did well. Through all of these mistakes we learned things and hopefully you’ll learn from our mistakes so you can have a successful project the first time.

Make sure –

  1. You have enough content for 8 to 12 lessons or modules. These modules you’ll want to drip out to the people that purchase your course. This means when they buy the course they’ll get access to week one, a week later the next piece of content will become available and so forth. You do this for a couple of different reasons. We’ll get into those in a bit. Let’s pretend for example that you tutor Math – you think that you could create a course that prepares someone for taking their ACT or SAT. You’ll then write out the modules and think about it.
  2. Now do some research on the internet. Search for what you’ll be selling. Example I would search for ACT Math Course. You want to make sure there are some paid advertising – if someone is paying to advertise, that means that they are making money selling it.
  3. Create a brief outline of your modules and talk with your current students (and parents) – what do they think about it – they can give you some ideas of what to add.

When you create your modules, you’ll only want to create the first few modules, until you have sold a few of them. That was my mistake with the math course. Next week on the blog we’ll talk about some things that you’ll need – we’ll show you behind the scenes at our NCLEX site. Till then work on coming up with 8 to 12 modules. Need some help, please feel free to send us a note at info@cleverapple.com

Getting Students –

Students should have had at least one test since the Christmas break – now is a great time to focus in on that. An example – “Failed your first math test, Ace the next one…” you get the idea.

Business Tip –

Using high school or college students are a great way to get some work you needed done for your business without paying an arm and a leg. Here are some tips – https://www.eremedia.com/tlnt/your-next-hire-should-be-in-high-school/

Reminders –

If your business didn’t do so well last year or you think you’ll be getting a refund from Uncle Sam – now is probably a good time to do your taxes. If you use an accountant now they are less busy, but every day that it gets closer to the tax deadline in April they will begin to get swamped. I know an accountant that gets only a couple of hours of sleep the week before the deadline and then he goes on a two week vacation the day after. Even if you think you owe, now is a good time to get them done, you just don’t need to pay until the day the payment(s) are due.

Enjoy your week!