We talked last time about how to get employees for your tutor business. Today we’re going to talk about what happens when you have a short term illness or event when you’ll need to be out of the office for a month or less.
If you’re up to the level of office manager then you’ll be ahead of the game. If you have a part time employee or a couple of full time employees then you’ll want to plan for such an event.
You’ll want to have an employee who you trust with running your business while you are away… this is really hard. I’ve had some serious breaks of trust in running my business for 12 years or so. This was people who I thought I could trust, but it turned out not to work out so well. So how do you know you can trust them. You have a bit of a problem. If you teach them to run your business, then they could just leave you and start a tutoring business of their own… not good.
This is why during the hiring process you’ll want them to sign a non-disclosure agreement with a non compete clause. Again you will want to get a lawyer who has experience doing this for you. It is better to spend a few hundred dollars now, than watch someone take away thousands of dollars of your business.
So you have someone you trust, who more importantly has signed the legal paper work. You’ll want to train them in a few different things at a time.
1. How to sign up a tutor client.
2. Scheduling. Especially how to reschedule / cancel appointments.
3. Procedures for how you get money and deposit it (checks/credit cards/ and cash).
4. Getting more clients and retaining them.
5. Advertising Procedures.
6. Bills – what needs paid / when.
In order for someone to take your place for a short time you would need them to have learned at least the first three. The best way to train them is to teach them, watch them as they do the procedure, correct their mistakes, and then watch them again.
If the illness or event is sudden then one of the first things they will need to do (with your help if you’re able – on their own if you’re not) is to revise the schedule. If you have some potential employees in your hiring que you may want to hire one of those part time.
Explain to the clients that need to know (like those you tutor) what is going on. 95% of the people are very understanding and won’t get grouchy about missing appointments. The other 5% you may have a hard time with.
Hope this helps you out a bit and you have a wonderful weekend.