Taking the Phone Calls – this also applies to calling them
The phone rings and what do you say? Once you get the ball rolling you’ll probably want to get a simple second line but for now you don’t need it. You have a potential customer on the line, so how do you get them from here to in your door to meet with you (or you go to meet with them somewhere).
We have some scripts in our starting a tutor business guide but here are some things you’ll want to keep in mind.
1. Be professional and courteous – you don’t have to be stuffy but you do want to be courteous with them even if they don’t become a client. From now on you’ll be building a reputation for your business and you’ll want it to be a good one. Even if they don’t become a client they may mention to someone else, I just spoke to the nicest lady…
2. Ask a few questions to allow you to form a plan of attack.
– What grade is their child in. (if it’s not a grade you serve – you’ll want to make a note of their contact information – you’ll want to get some friends in your area that tutor that way you can trade leads with each other – you give them the grade school leads, they give you the high school leads).
– What subject they are having trouble in, what kind of help do they need (or do the parents just want you to push them) – don’t be too focused on tutoring those that need help, many just want some extra instruction for their kids.
Let’s pretend they are in high school and need help with Algebra – they are a freshman so you’ll want to keep in the back of your mind that you could be tutoring them for 4 years.
3. Price – one of the things that will be prominent on their minds is how much will the cost me. Since this is your first tutoring gig here is my suggestion. Give them the first lesson for free, then charge about 70% of the going rate in your town. We’ll pretend that the average rate in my town is $40 / hour.
So my rate would be $28 / hour. If you are able to tutor them longer (you tutor highschool and they are a freshman) you may want to adjust the rate down (to say $25 / hour). If you will be tutoring for just a year you may want to adjust the rate slightly higher ($30/hour).
So using the examples above you could say the following:
+++++++++
Mrs. Smith I would love to help Sam with his math this year. From things you’ve been telling me he would probably need two tutoring sessions a week. We would be tutoring him 8 one hour sessions a month, the first session is free, then you can purchase 24 sessions for $x.xx or a month of sessions for $x.xx. We would love to meet with you to discuss this a bit and to meet with you and Sam. Would Tuesday afternoon or Thursday evening be better.
++++++++++++
Giving them a choice at the end works really well. We’ll talk about the interview a little later but next we’ll be talking some more about advertising.
Ralphcella Hatton says
Thank you. This example really helps me to understand how to set my rates.
The-Apple says
Our pleasure.