We have had flash flooding over the past few days, so this issue is going to be a little short. I apologize for that, we weren’t affected but some friends and neighbors were, and if you’re like me then you help where you can. We’re also supposed to have some more rounds for the next several days, so I think I may buy a boat.
I have too many students –
We received a question this past week from one of our subscribers. She has too many students (she works alone) and asked for some help. I asked her a bit more about her business and then gave her an answer (one note, we love questions :-]) Here are some tips in case you run into the same problem.
Let’s pretend It’s my business and I tutor Math, five nights a week, from 4pm till 9pm. I tutor each student for 55 minutes, so I have a total of 25 tutor sessions. The tutor sessions average $20 since I offer discounts when people pay in advance. So from my sessions I earn about $500 a week.
First we want to make sure that people are committed to be a customer before I change things. I ask them to put a small deposit down $50, and offer them the next available tutor sessions.
When I have a couple of people that have paid the deposit, or if I begin to get tired of telling people we’re full, then I start looking for tutors. The best place to look as at the school your tutoring. I tutor Math, so I speak with the Math instructors ask them about any exceptional math students they may want to earn some extra money. I decide that I will be doing Pre-Cal and Calculus and they will be responsible for Algebra. I need a list of three or four people to ‘interview / speak’ with.
I call them and ask if they would be interested in tutoring for me a couple of nights / every day of the week. They would earn $100 / week for 10 hours of work. You may have to speak with a couple of people before you find some takers, then you interview them and then ask them to pretend to help you with a math problem. Chose the best candidate, offer them the job, tell the others you interview / ask them if it is ok if you contact them if another position becomes available. File their contact information away.
If you don’t find any good candidates from high-school then speak with the local college (again I like to speak with the Math professor), they normally don’t mind to make an announcement in class.
Here are some more places you can find tutors. Ask your kids, they probably know someone that is ‘smart’ in almost any subject, put an ad up at the local college, the student center is another good place to look.
Announce it on your face book pages and other social media sites.
Let’s pretend that my tutor business continued to grow and now we have two sessions running five nights a week 4-9. So we’re making $1000 a week and paying $250.00. And that continues on.
There are a few other ways to get some more sessions in, although I’ve found that hiring someone works out better.
- Group people together – this works for certain subjects, but not for all.
- Have additional sessions on the weekends.
- Make the sessions shorter, tutor later or begin earlier.
I hope you have a wonderful week.
Useful URLs – I didn’t talk about taxes and how to setup your accounting for employees because I’m not an accountant, but you can find some information about employees from the IRS website. http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Independent-Contractor-Self-Employed-or-Employee
Quote – The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller
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