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Some discount ideas for your tutor business

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rp_2003452102_30aeb442ea_m.jpgI hope your November is going well. It still feels like summer here in Kentucky. We have had so many 70 and 80 degree days I think we’re getting spoiled. Today we’re going to talk about discounts. Black Friday and the Christmas shopping season will be here before you know it. Your customers will love getting a discount from you.

  1. What kind of discount are you going to offer.
    Think for a moment about your business and where you are now. How many customers do you have, how many additional customers can you handle for the spring. Or do you need more customers now? Do you want it to be a deal for one of your current programs or something new that you’re going to develop?

    We’ll pretend that we’re booked pretty solid for the fall, we’ve talked to our current students and know that in the spring we’ll have two or three slots open. We want to get some concrete numbers so we decide to offer a couple of different discounts. One for new students and one for current students.

  2. How much are you going to discount / creating the offer.

    By now you should know how much a new student brings in with your current prices. We’ll say for our example that a new student brings in $150 / week or averages about $450 for a semester. We normally keep the students for 3 semesters so the life time value of our customer is $450 x 3 = $1350.00

    We decide we’re going to offer three different discounts – this will help us learn more about our customers and help us test out some things for the future. We want to learn what kind of discount works best.

    We will offer –
    -20% off for current tutor students that sign up and pay for their tutoring in advance for the remainder of this semester and next.
    -Buy one month get the next month of tutoring free if someone signs up to be tutored for all next semester.
    For January and Feb – buy two sessions, get one free.

  3. Implementing the discount

    Create a web page on your blog for each of the discounts. Each of the discount codes need to be different. If you get most of your business over the phone, make sure that everyone that works for you needs to ask if they have a discount code. An easy way to keep track is by using a spreadsheet.

  4. Covering all of the bases

    Limit the number of people that can take the discount and keep to those discounts. You’ll want to note this in your advertising and you’ll want to make sure to mention that on the web pages you create. Explain in detail how the discount works – don’t leave anything to their imagination.

    Example:
    20% off. Five current tutor students of Clever Apple will get 20% off for the rest of this semester and next semesters tutoring (Up to 25 sessions). Payment for these sessions must be made in advance. See below for pricing options – it includes the 20% off. Make sure to use 20off when you’re ordering.
    List the prices.

I hope this will help you get some more customers.

Next time we’ll talk some about some ways that you can get the word out.

Teaching your Tutor Students – Memorization Techniques – Flashcards

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rp_300px-Post-it.jpgWe’re going to be reviewing in the weeks ahead some methods to help your students study. This week we’ll be reviewing memorization techniques. Today we’re going to be talking about one of my favorite memorization techniques – flashcards.

There are many different ways you can help your student study by using flashcards, just like any of the methods we talk about you’ll want to try them all and then chose the one that works best for the student.

Flashcards you create yourself

When I was in nursing schools I used flashcards to help me pass my classes and then my NCLEX test. I did this using the old fashioned technique of figuring out the content that I needed to learn and then writing the questions / topic on one side of an index card and the answer on the other. This worked well, I think it helped almost as much to write everything down. We had a study session every weekend with four or five other students and we would use those flashcards between major topics that we were studying.

Things to remember: With flashcards you create, make sure to check and double check the information you put on them is correct. If the information is wrong then you’ll be learning something that won’t help you pass a test.

Online Flash Cards –

There are several different services online that offer free flashcards for almost any topic imaginable. An example is this service.

https://quizlet.com/help/2444092/how-do-i-study-with-flashcard-mode

The flashcards are made by different people – if you’re using this with your student then MAKE SURE the flash cards you use are correct. I’ve found the best way to use this method is to prepare the flash cards together with your student.

Purchasing them online –

You can purchase flash cards from Amazon. If you’re doing this make sure to check out the reviews from people that purchased the product. If there are a whole lot of one star reviews then the product probably doesn’t do a very good job.

Long-term learning.

I was in the Army for awhile during the time when there was an East and West Germany, and my duty was to guard the border between the two countries. We used flash cards with normal playing card numbers on the front. This helped us learn the things we were supposed to learn (we needed to know what the silohette (or shadow) of all of the enemies vehicles looked like. In the first Desert storm we were also issued playing card / flash cards that showed faces of the enemy and customs. You can create your own cards for these especially for long term study products (like the NCLEX, Law exam, etc.).

Do you have any ideas for using flash cards? Let us know in the comments.

Your tutor student failed a test – Four ways to help them pass the next one.

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You tutor high-school math. You have a tutor student, Jill who you’ve been tutoring for a couple of weeks. Things seem to be going well, she takes the first Geometry test and makes a 62%, the passing grade is 70%, what do you do?

If you’ve been tutoring for very long, you’ve already ran into this situation, if you haven’t yet, just give it some time. So what are some steps you can do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

  1. Assess –

You should be doing this with every test that one of your students take or paper that they submit, if possible get a copy of the test (all of them), if the teacher doesn’t give copies of the test back, you’ll want to call them. Explain to them you tutor the student and you want to help them to study effectively. Normally they will be more than happy to give you some idea of what the student missed. When I’ve done this I would say that half the time I get the test back, the other times I get a good run down of what kind of problems the student has missed. When you get the test back, review the results and find out what Jill is having trouble with. In the example we gave, was it the math, was it formulas, reading problems, etc. Finding what the problem is the first step of helping them.

If there isn’t one thing that stands out, then it could be a case of test anxiety. One thing I love doing is giving a review test, before the actual test and watch the student as they take the test. This can be really easy if you tutor online, just have the student use a whiteboard program (that shows there work on the screen) or get a camera set up.

The student’s parents are also probably disappointed, after all they are paying you so that Jill won’t fail the test and so that eventually she be able to pass the ACT and go to whatever college that she chooses. Now is a great time to talk about the score and what you’re planning on doing to help their child pass the next one. If a parent isn’t involved, then just explain things to the student.

  1. Plan –

    Now that you’ve figured out what is wrong it is time to create a plan. Find out how long it is till their next exam or paper. List the content they’ll need to know for the next test. Is that content similar to what was on the last project. Is it new material? In our example, we found out that Jill didn’t know the formulas she needed to on the test.

    Figure out how many tutor sessions you have between now and the next test. Each tutor session you’ll want to focus on something to ensure they pass it next time.

  2. Implement the plan.
  3. Review – how did it go? The longer you tutor a specific student, the more you’ll learn about them and figure out what they have trouble with.

Good luck. Questions, comments, or have a case you would like some help with just let us know in the comments below.

Facebook Advertising for your Tutor Business

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Hope everyone is doing great and has plans for a wonderful holiday weekend. I wanted to share with you some results from a Facebook ad campaign we worked on the past couple of weeks.

cleverfb-1

Some highlights:

  • The campaign lasted from August 22nd till Sept. 1st 2016.
  • We were highlighting a new program for our NCLEX site – we were offering a coupon.
  • Almost 1800 people visited our website (1799).
  • We spent $189.08 for the campaign.
  • Cost per click or visit 11 cents.

 

The campaign generated 6 new signups (sales) for the monthly program we were highlighting.

3 – $9 / month plans.
2 – $19 / month plans
1 – $29 / month
===================

Total – $94.00 / month.

This is a new program so we don’t have solid numbers for how long these subscribers will stay with us. We’ll guess an average of 5 months.

Total – $$470.00

It generated a couple of other signups to.

1 @ $97
1 @ $149
==========

$246

Grand total – $716

Ad cost – $189.08

Profit – $526.92

 

So are we pleased. Yes we are. Next week we’ll go over some of the backend things we did with the ad. Probably in the middle of Sept. we’ll be tweaking the ad a little and running it again to see how folks respond. The greatest thing was the 11 cents / click. We do Google advertising quite a bit, the lowest I can get a click thru for if everything is working perfectly is $1 to $1.25 a click.

Enjoy your day and if you have any question let us know.

Your first tutor session – How to Make a Good Impression Part 1

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Today we’re going to talk about first impressions and some things you want to make sure you do during the first tutor session. Today we’ll talk about online tutoring, next week we’ll talk about off line tutoring.

After you sell a tutor session or package, you need to make sure to do the following.

1. Learn about your new client.

The best way I’ve found to do this is with a form. Google forms makes it easy to create a form. Within the form you should include their contact information, days and times they would like to be tutored, what they expect to get out of the tutor sessions. Ask them for any information that will help you assess them and begin to figure out what you need to work with them on.

2. Send them information on how to access your platform. Email or send them to a video or webpage that explains to them in detail how to set up so you can tutor them. Every platform is different and setting things up is a bit different. I have found the easiest way to do this is to explain to someone that you’re sitting with exactly how to set things up and take notes while you do it. Compile these notes into a check list and then take it to someone different and watch them set things up. They should be able to hear you, see what you want them to see on the screen and you should be able to hear them and watch them (their screen) or both. If you’re tutoring a child in elementary school you’ll want to explain to them they need to be with the child to help them start the first session (at least).

3. Schedule a time. Use the information they gave you from the contact form and give them some time options. I normally like to send them three or four choices for the first session. During the first tutor session you’ll set up the ‘regular’ days and times for tutoring the.

4. Practice online tutoring with someone. Do this with a friend or family member. Do this with someone you haven’t seen in a while. Make sure they have the tools, send them your instructions and then start an online session with them. Find out any problems they might have and correct them before you have a real student.

During the First Session

1. Work out the kinks. Make sure the student can hear you and you can hear them. Explain to them how to ask / answer questions. Also how you’ll send them work to do and if you need to see them do the work (like Math).

2. Do an initial assessment. Finding out where they are will help you implement a plan that will work in helping them. It will also make you look good.

3. Ask if they have any friends. Probably 3/4’s of my new clients came from referrals from someone else. The students you have now is the best form of advertising. Offering them an incentive to bring you new clients will help them remember you when someone they know needs help in the subject you’re tutoring. Test your incentives, they can be different for each student.

Next time we’ll talk about off line tutoring. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to send us a note.

Learn from your Tutor Successes

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Key to success

Key to success

Most of you tutor or are thinking about starting a tutoring business. At your core is the desire to help someone overcome an obstacle. Today we’re going to talk about one of our success stories and hopefully it will give you some tips for helping you to become a better tutor. It should also help to build and grow your business.

We’ve talked some about our NCLEX tutor business. You can check out the website here – http://www.nclexreviewonline.com/

Nothing fancy but it works. If you want to see some of the inner workings you can find a link for 24 free access here at the bottom of the page – http://www.nclexreviewonline.com/nclex-boot-camp-nclex-review-course/

We tutor students who are preparing to take the NCLEX test, we found as we talked to prospective students, many of them had failed the NCLEX test previously.

Talk to prospective customers – you may think you know what your market is, the only way you can know for sure is to test it and then talk to prospective customers. There are a couple of ways you can talk to them, one of the best ways I found was to create an information form and after a student filled it out, then you have permission to engage with them. One of the best questions you can add to your form is what they expect you to do for them.

Make it easy for someone to get in touch with you.

Someone did this, she had taken the LPN NCLEX test previously and had failed. She asked could we tutor LPNS (the site is setup for RNS). I told her that I would do some research and found the tests are very similar. The first thing we did was a good assessment.

Assess your students – the more you learn their strengths and weaknesses the better you’ll be able to help them. During your assessment you want to find out all you can about your prospective student. This lady has six children and works a full time job. I learned she wanted to be an LPN so she could better provide for her family – that motivated me. If you only tutor for money, you will fail. I know that sounds harsh, but it is true. Tutoring is not easy, but it is very rewarding.

I found out from (we’ll call her B) that she had taken the NCLEX and the test had ended (it can last five hours) and she sent me the results. She had almost passed. We needed to focus on getting her to answer questions quicker. Language was a problem too since she was not a native English speaker. We tutored her for a month. Most of our sessions began at 4 or 5 in the morning. I think I was her wake up call. We focused on her weaknesses and I noticed improvement as we continued.

I also encouraged her as much as I could.

Encourage your students. Even the small accomplishments, tell them they are doing a good job. Every student I’ve ever tutored, loves it when they are complimented.

Also one of the problems she had was she had taken another course that was all about dissecting the questions. We figured out this was why she answered questions so slowly, we retrained her to forget that and just answer the questions.

Our last tutor session was on a Saturday afternoon. This session we spent most of the time encouraging her and giving her some last minute tips and pointers. I asked her if she would like to talk again before the test and she did. Monday afternoon I called her on the way to take the test. I reminded her of all the work we had done (she had answered thousands of practice questions) and told her to relax. She called me when the test was over. She was upset. The test had turned off after only 3 hours. I reminded her this was a good thing. She also mentioned the questions were hard (again a good thing). This was the note I got from her yesterday.

“Pass Pass Thank you God bless you and your wonderful family.”

I did the happy dance.

Evaluate and Adjust – for each student you’re tutoring you should be taking careful notes. Every student is different, but many things are the same. For example, we know a lot about the NCLEX test, we have found that answering good test questions help people to pass the test. We also use assessment tests and if they make a certain score, then they will likely pass the test. One of the other things with any tutor student is figuring out what motivates them and how to help calm them down when they are taking a test.

We love hearing questions from you. Enjoy your day!

Four things you want to do before school starts for your Tutor Business

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Finding Tutor Students

Finding Tutor Students – Back to School

I hope you have enjoyed your summer and had some vacation time. Before you know it school will be back in session and if you tutor students that are going to school, it’s time to get back into gear. Here are some reminders of things you’ll want to make sure to do.

  1. Decide how much you want to tutor this year. If you tutored last year and nothing changed, then you’ll want to tutor that amount of time. Do you want to expand? Now is the time to think about hiring a tutor to help you. Do you need to cut back for some reason, then you’ll want to adjust.

    I decide how many hours I can tutor in a week.

    Example: I can tutor from 4-9pm each day except Friday (20 hours). I can also tutor four hours on Saturday (total 24 hours / week).
    How many hours each student will need. Most of my students need an hour a week. So I can have 24 tutor students.

  2. You should have some notes from your last tutor sessions from the Spring semester (or hopefully you’ve tutored them a couple of times during the summer). Create a schedule for your week. Contact those on your previous tutor list. Let them know when school is starting, when your tutoring will begin. Also explain to them any changes, fee differences etc. Then ask them what day and time they want. The best way is to offer them a couple of different times – a good way to begin is start with the time you tutored them last semester. Also explain to them any ‘extras’ you have that they may be interested in. Remember it is SUPER EASY to sell something to a customer you already have. If you think you’ll have some slots left open (see 3) ask them for referrals and offer them an incentive to help you find more students.
  3. Figure out how many tutor slots you have left over. We’ll pretend we have 9 slots left over, so we need to find nine students to fill those spots. Even though I know we’ll get a few calls during the first few weeks of school, it would be better if we filled all of the slots before school starts.
  4. Marketing plan – if you browse through our blog you will find a ton of ways to find tutor students. I will list just a couple here – contact the schools you’ll be tutoring at. Find out if they’re going to be having any back to school festivities. Ask if you can sponsor the event – offer to buy school supplies. This gives you some good will for the school and you’ll want to make sure that you’ll get to put up a poster or put out some brochures. Contact the guidance counselors and librarians, and the school teachers that teach your subject. They should already know you so just remind them that you’re still in business.

Do you have any ways that you like to get new students? Let us know in the comments below and we hope you are ready to make this school year the best for your tutor business.

Pokeman Go and your tutor business

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pokeman-goUnless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about Pokeman Go.

Here is a link that talks about the game.

http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-go/

So you get the game, then you go outside and search for characters to add to your game. If you see people wondering around mindlessly bumping into stuff while they are looking down at their cell phone, then that is probably what they are doing.

I think this is an opportunity for businesses since you can ‘buy’ a lure. This lure adds one of the characters to a location that you choose. These lures are in place for 30 minutes. Like any new opportunity that comes along for advertising the cost is currently $10 but I’m pretty sure that it will be going up in the near future.

I’m still doing some research on exactly how it works – do you choose the character, is it random. If you purchase two lures at different times of the day or different days, are they the same character that shows up or is it different. I have a bunch of ideas about how this could work for businesses. What I need to think about is how that it could work to increase traffic and sales for your tutor business. I’m sure I’ll think of one and then I’ll make sure to share it with you.

If you had a normal business – like say a coffee shop then you could buy a lure when you didn’t have much business, then advertise that you bought a lure and that they will be there between this time and that.

Do you guys have any ideas? Let us know in the comments or our Facebook page.

Have you created your content plan for Summer?

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Start An Online Tutor Business

Start An Online Tutor Business

The Summer is a great time to put some good content on your blog. People take vacations during the summer and normally have some extra time to do things that they enjoy (like read). The great thing for you is after you create your content plan, you can begin work on your blog posts, videos, etc. You should be able to do that in a couple of weeks and then you can take some extra time off during the summer.

Start with the end –

When does school start back where you live. If you don’t know, now is the time to find it out. For this articles sake we’ll pretend that it is August 15th. Remember during the first few weeks of school / before school is a great time to get students for your tutor business. We’ll pretend that we tutor math and have a math camp for a couple of weeks in July. Here is a sample for what we would post and you can use to hopefully create your plan.  The plan is to post something M- W – F

June 12 –
M- Success stories – highlight some of your successes from last year.
W- Video highlights
F- Photos from summer – doesn’t have to be business or even subject related – although it can be.

June 19 –

M- Success stories – highlight some of your successes from last year.
W- Create an article series that lasts 4 or 5 weeks. Should focus on a big problem area for your students. ACT / SAT Math tips
F – Photos from summer

June 26

M- Detailed article about Math Camp
W- ACT / SAT Math tips
F – Photos from summer

July 3

M- Math Camp reminder
W- ACT / SAT Math tips
F – Photos from summer

July 10 – Math camp – record a couple of sessions showing you teaching math. We’ll edit these into three hour long videos.

M- First day of Math camp
W- Pictures from Math Camp
F – Video of Math Camp

July 17

M- ACT / SAT Math tips
W- Video Math Camp highlights
F – Photos from summer

July 24

M- Math Camp teach video
W- ACT / SAT Math tips
F – Photos from summer

July 31

M- Math Camp teach video
W- High School Algebra – Things to review before starting this year.
F – Photos from summer

Aug 7

M- Math Camp teach video
W- High School Geometry – Things to review before starting this year.
F – Tutor Specials

Aug 14

M- Math teachers this year
W- Tips for starting school right
F – Photos from summer

What we’ve been up to … never give up!

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nevergiveupI was going to send this out yesterday, but the day passed and I still hadn’t done it. I’ve been working on creating a new program. I’m just like you, I love to tutor. I don’t only enjoy teaching tutors; I also enjoy teaching student’s subjects. You may or may not know, I was a nurse for five years. I loved helping patients, but hated all of the crap that can sometimes come from working in a hospital. When I started my business (the same time I was at the hospital), it was rough, when I started doing well in my business, I decided that I couldn’t do both.

I have mentioned before that as a tutor you need to create a standalone product. As one person, you only have so many hours a day that you can tutor. When you have a product, it can teach subjects for you and make you a bit of money in the process.

I decided a year or so ago that I wanted to tutor something related to nursing and the NCLEX test. I knew there was a market for it, I also knew that people needed it (and would pay for it) and that I could help fill that need. I tried a couple of different tactics, which didn’t work. When you create a new product, you don’t have to have the whole project completed before you do some testing. I did a math program, a video flash card, and an NCLEX tutoring program (one on one) – each of these programs taught me several different things from customers that I talked to. They helped me come up with another idea (the fourth one).

Here is the process I use –

  1. Have an idea.
  2. Research to see if it has an audience, do a little research on pricing.
  3. Gather some information about questions that customers want answers to and check out current products.
  4. Create an outline. Normally I like 4 or 6 modules / months of content. This product was going to be an NCLEX product and students normally take the test within a couple of months after school, so it needed to be compact – so I decided on a four-week program. I like to drip the content – this means customers get access to a segment of content (a week or a month) – then 7 days or 30 days, they get access to the next bit of content.
  5. Create the first segment of content. Build a sales page.
  6. Do a soft launch – advertise a little bit and get some customers (hopefully) – if not set the project aside. Go back to #1.

I am always a bit nervous when I start the advertising. For this project I got five sales in 2 days. Each of the weeks of content had seven days of content. Each of those days had videos etc. that I needed to create, so that’s what I’ve been up to. This morning I finished recording week 4 Saturday and Sunday, next week I’ll work on the ‘Bonus week” and setup an affiliate program. So we have been busy. The great thing is now I can tweak, tune, refine the content, but it will always be there. I spent a couple of hundred hours creating it, so far the return on that time investment is only a couple of bucks an hour, but we’ll share with you what it is at the end of the summer.

Next time I’ll share with you how we set up things. Why don’t you share what you’ve been up to, just shoot us a comment on our Facebook page?