Clever Apple - How to Start a Tutor Business

Helping People Like You Start a Tutor Business since 2000

Sign up for our FREE Newsletter

Tips for getting your first Tutoring Student

By:

Shaker student desk

Shaker student desk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had an interesting question this morning on our blog. They asked how to get their first tutoring student. We have a whole section on our website dedicated to getting your first student.

You can find that section here – http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/category/getting-your-first-tutor-client/
Another good place to go here -  http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/how-to-get-your-first-tutor-client-part-1/

You’ll want to do parts 1-7.

So how did you get your first “paying” tutor client. We would love to hear from you just put it in the comments section below.

My first paying client was actually a group of clients I got in college. I tutored for the work study program, which was a couple of hours each. I had 4 students and they each wanted more. So I started tutoring them each a couple of extra hours a week. I was tutoring anatomy at the time so I had two semesters with them.

It was funny when they all got A’s for the class and I graduated they all bought me a present. But the thing that was even better was I got experience and referrals so the next year we had 10 or so and it grew from there.

So let us know how you got your first tutor student.

Creating a Summer Tutor Program – Getting the word out

By:

"FOR SALE" - a classified ad in a ne...

"FOR SALE" - a classified ad in a newspaper. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hope you’re having a wonderful day. Some terrible weather going on this past weekend. One of our clients had tornados within 10 miles of her in three directions. Some scary stuff.

Today we’re going to talk a little about your Summer tutor programs.

You’ve created your programs, decided on your pricing, now it’s time to work on getting the word out.

1. Don’t forget about methods you’re already using to get the word out. Especially if you have some methods that are working now, continue to use them.

2. Let your current customers know what’s coming. Offer them a discount and give them some incentive to let others know about the new programs. A good example would be to give them a free tutor session or give them $10 bucks off a session. You’ll want to make sure you don’t cut into your profit margin.

3. Let your contacts in school know about the program. Create a brochure and ask them can they give them to students who are interested.

4. Add some pages to your website and then use some web methods to get some traffic.

Enjoy your Tuesday.

Improve your tutor business with these five tips

By:

A toolbox, from Biltema)

A toolbox, from Biltema) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A big welcome to our new subscribers and new customers.

Hopefully your week is going well. We had some nice comments and notes from last week’s newsletter. Apparently there are a whole lot of people doing really well with their summer tutor programs. Remember these programs don’t only work for your current students, but you can use them to get new customers.

We also got a note from someone that mentioned their numbers were down some. They had a beautiful website but it needed some tweaks. This week’s article is about how to make sure you’ve included everything you need to in your website (but also your brochures, ads, etc.).

We love hearing from you. Questions, comments, ideas you want to share. Just hit reply to this note or you can use the comments section on our blog.

This week we’ve also added a To Do list. Hopefully this will help you build your business.

We’ve also tweaked / tuned our website. We’ve added some new programs, made payment plans for some items and hopefully made it easier to use and understand. Here’s a good page that will let you see some of the changes.

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

These Five Things can Help Build your Tutor Business

  1. You want to actually present what you’re selling and give folks a way to buy it. A great copywriter told me you only need three things to succeed. Tell people what you’ve got. Tell people how it will benefit them, and then tell them what to do next. You want to make sure you have at least all three of these things in your advertising. A simple example of this would be – On April 10th we’ll be offering a 4 hour course on how to pass your ACT test. This course will be at the Rec Center and will be $25. This course will cover everything you need to make a great grade the first time. You can click on the link below to reserve your spot or call us at 1-555. Spots are limited. Call before April 5th and we’ll give you a coupon for 10% off a private tutor session. In that simple bit we have included the three things you need. We’ve also given them a reason to contact us now and we’ve put in some tracking information to.
  2. Make sure you make it clear how to contact you. When people visit your site or look at your brochure they should have no doubt of how to contact you. You should have at least your phone number and a clickable email link or a contact form.
  3. Track how you’re getting your leads. We’ve mentioned this before, but you should have some ideas for discounts. You should have different discounts for each of your different offers.
  4. If you have an office, let people know how to find you. You should have your address on your website. You can use Google Places to let people find exactly where you are.
  5. Give people a reason to contact you today. Offer them a limited time discount. Sometimes doing this will push them into acting today… instead of waiting.

Resources you can use –

Taking Action – Tuesday Tutor Business Tip – Taking Action

To Do List for the Week –

  1. Make sure you have a tutor program outlined for this summer. Your goal should be to announce it to your students by the middle of next month and begin advertising in May.
  2. Take a look at your current literature, advertising and website. Make sure it includes the five things we mentioned. If not revise.
  3. If you have a Facebook page make sure you are ready for the “new” look.
  4. Do something fun with your family this weekend.

Have a wonderful week!!

Tuesday Tutor Business Tip – Taking Action

By:

Stock Image - Hollywood Production Clap Board

Stock Image - Hollywood Production Clap Board (Photo credit: Kratka Photography)

Hope your week is going well. Todays tutor tip is about taking action. Unfortunately this stops many people from having a successful business. Many people for whatever reason believe that things need to be perfect before they try it.

This reminds me of a client we were working with. They had created a wonderful video tutorial about how to do fractions. The video was about 15 minutes or so long and we had worked with them for weeks until I felt it was ready to launch. We were going to use the video for a couple of different purposes. One of them main uses was to put it on you tube and direct folks to their online tutor business.

The video worked. It wasn’t perfect but it got the points across and taught the major concepts very well. They didn’t think it was perfect, so they tweaked and tuned and tweaked for weeks. Until they gave up. Very, very sad.

Things you’re doing don’t have to be perfect. Let’s say you’re building a website. After you launch it there will be plenty of time to tweak and tune things. The big thing is to take action and do it.

I encourage you today to pick something from your to do list you’ve been putting off and just do it. Tomorrow pick another item and do it. You’ll be surprised how these things pile up (in a good way).

Enjoy your Tuesday.

End of Year Tutor Business Tips – Taxes / Advertising and More

By:

English: Danboard holding a Christmas gift.

Image via Wikipedia

News –

Hope you are having a wonderful week. We tweaked the appearance of our newsletter and will be tweaking it over the holidays. Hopefully the one thing is we have content that you can use. Which reminds me if you have something you would like us to talk about, or want to know how to do something please let us know. You can leave us a comment on the blog, reply to this email or you can comment on facebook.

We will be taking some time off for Christmas (from the Newsletter and from posting on the Blog) – we’ll still be processing orders – providing support for our customers. The next issue of the newsletter will be on January 5th. This issue should give you plenty of stuff to do between now and then.

We also would like to take a moment to wish you and your family a wonderful holiday full of lots of fun stuff.

*** Our Gift to you ****

Normally with our tutor business program – we build you a website, facebook, Google plus and give you 3 months free hosting. We’ll give a year’s free hosting to the first 10 people that order before December 20th.

1. Go here – and place your order.
2. Email us after you order with the coupon FREE HOSTING and we’ll make sure to apply the hosting to your account.

If you already have a site – order the course – and we’ll give you a free Business review. We’ll take a look at your business and give you some tips to help you grow faster.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Tutor Business Tips –

A few business tips for you to work on –

1. Now is a great time to make sure you have some local advertising in place. In many school districts report cards come out right before the Christmas break. If you haven’t done it yet you should find out when the schools you’re targeting give out report cards. You should then make sure on the calendar you advertise (especially) the week before and the week after report cards. During a couple of weeks leading up the report cards you’ll want to remind your current client’s to recommend you if they hear about anyone that needs help in the subject area you’re tutoring.

2. Do you have any goals? If you do we would love to hear them. With big goals I like to break them down into smaller parts. So let’s say for 2012 I want to sell 100 of our guides. That means I need to sell about 2 / week. So write down your big goal, break it down, and share it with someone. Someone that will hold you accountable and will ask you how you’re doing throughout the year.

3. It’s coming up on the end of the year. It’s time to think about the end of the year and taxes. I recommend you at least find out if you’re going to owe a bunch (or not). Here’s what I do. This isn’t tax advice, you should talk to your accountant.

a) Buy a tax program like Turbo tax or something similar. These were on sale quite a bit last week on Amazon. Don’t pay more than $100 but you’ll definitely want to have a business version.
b) Before the end of the year (I will do it on Dec 26th this year). Do your taxes within the program. You won’t know some of the numbers and for those estimate them. I won’t know exactly the income I will make but I can estimate it. Estimate your income a bit high, your expenses a bit low.
c) How did you do? If you made quite a bit more than expected you may want to purchase some things before the end of the year. You will of course want to purchase things you can deduct. One year I bought a new computer, last year I paid a few extra months of health insurance. If you’re going to owe quite a bit you’ll have some time to make sure you save up enough to pay it.

Continue – Building your Website / Web Presence.

There are many different ways you can build a web presence online. We’ve talked about several of them. Another easy way is to use Google Plus – which is super simple.

–> Make sure you have a Google Plus Account – https://plus.google.com
–> In the right column it says “Create a Google Plus Page” – click that and follow the instructions.

The only way to tie them all together [facebook, Google Plus, Google Places etc.] is to build a blog. Building a blog is awesome because you can create content there and then share it all over the web. So that one piece of content can be seen in numerous places and content is good. Since you’re building a business I would recommend you get a domain name and create a ‘real’ website. In future issues will talk about –

Creating a domain name for your site.
Setting up a hosting account.
Setting up your blog.
Adding things to your blog / making it SEO friendly.
The smart way to post content.

Hope you have a wonderful week.

 

How to create your Google Plus (+) page for business

By:

Good Morning. Up early today. It actually feels almost like summer time outside. The wind is howling outside and we’re supposed to have some storms later today.

Last week Google Plus allowed businesses to create a page. We made a video on how to do it and it is really simple.

Hope you enjoy it and have a wonderful day!!

Tutor Business – Increase your revenue by expanding services you offer

By:

Pencil art

Image by Nalini Prasanna via Flickr

A great way to get more money is by expanding or offering more services. There are a few different reasons why this is very useful.

1. It’s easy to sell to your existing customers. Your current customers know how well you do your job.

2. It’s a great way to get new customers. We’ll talk about some examples later. New folks sign up for the service and then go into one of your tutor programs.

3. It lets your customer base last longer – or start sooner. We’ve talked about how your customers have a finite period of time with you. These new services could extend the period they work with you.

Some examples –

These are by no means a comprehensive list – they are some examples to get you thinking. One thing to remember is you should be trying to solve problems your current students are having. Let’s say you tutor high school and your students are freaking out about the ACT or SAT. Now would be an excellent time to create a class that focuses on test prep for those tests. You could meet 8 Saturdays online – they could be morning classes. You have a scheduled class time from 10am but are available from 8am till 2 pm.

Test taking skills
How to study
Crafting your college application
etc.

Again limited only by your imagination. The best ideas are solving problems you are already aware of.

What I learned this week – persistance

By:

Picture of turtle from zoo.

Image via Wikipedia

I was reading an older issue of Fortune magazine this week and they had a book excerpt from Jim Collins. He talked about managing through chaos. In the example he talked about two different expeditions to become the first to the South Pole. Two different leadership styles – one team made it, the other team didn’t.

What was the difference? Persistence. One team traveled some every day – no matter if there was a blizzard or the sun was shining brightly. On good weather days they didn’t overextend themselves and on bad weather days – they still traveled.

So what does traveling to the south pole have to do with your business. Decide you’re going to grow your business. A good goal if you’re starting out is to do one thing every day to promote your business. If you do one thing, by the end of the year you will have done over 300 things.

You need to do it if you have new tutor prospects running out of your ears… and you need to do it even if you haven’t gotten a lead in a month… just keep after it.

You can do it. Enjoy your weekend.

Here’s the article – http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/30/jim-collins-great-by-choice-exclusive-excerpt/

Saving Money on Health Insurance – What I learned this week

By:

A stethoscope and partial hand.

Image via Wikipedia

You can save money on your health insurance.

 I love to save money, in fact I have a site I like to post tips on saving money frequently. You can check it out here –

 http://www.gasmileageguide.com/gas-savings-blog/

In figuring out the costs of doing business – like we’ve been working on this week – one of the biggest costs we have is for health insurance. I have insurance with a great company Blue Cross / Blue Shield. I need health insurance because my wife has asthma and I have a kid. If I were alone I wouldn’t even bother. We have had health insurance with this company for 8 or 9 years… when we quit our ‘normal’ job and started working only for ourself.

Over the past several years I’ve noticed that our premiums kept creeping up each year. $100 / month here – $50 there until this year they were going to be almost a grand a month. Since I always like to get the lowest price, the first thing I did was went to their website. Apparently my plan was an ‘old’ plan and they had some brand new plans. They have an online assessment tool on the site that will give you a reasonable quote. The quote said I would pay $575 / month. I called our insurance agent and asked him what it would take to check out these new policies. He explained that I would need to complete new forms and he would fax them to the company.

I mentioned that my wife has asthma, but she doesn’t take any meds. In fact when she goes to the doc, they give her a small shopping cart full of medicine, but for whatever reason they make her worse. So she takes a breathing treatment when she has a flare up – and controls it mostly by staying away from things that trigger it (mostly dust). The only prescription we had was for birth control.

 The result came back and our health insurance will now be $500 / month. I am really pleased. So if you pay for your own health insurance and have had it for awhile you may want to get a new quote. If you have a chronic illness or have recently spent a lot on health related bills I wouldn’t do it. But if you’re healthy then the only thing they can tell you is that it is more expensive or they won’t insure you. If you’re thinking about changing to a different company, the first thing I would do is check with your friends and family to make sure the policy pays well and you don’t have to go three states away to find a doctor that takes the insurance.

 Hope this tip helps save you some money and enjoy your weekend!!