• Search for:
21May
The School Bell Just Rang – Start Your Tutoring Business Now

When you start your tutoring business, remember that you may just be starting one of the all time great home businesses. This is a business for carpenters and chemists, for French language specialists and for French cooking specialists.
Take a look at why tutoring is such an amazing business to start.
IT IS THE PERFECT HOME BUSINESS. The internet has absolutely revolutionized the way people learn. Your clients need not be next door; they could be thousands of miles away. With the magic of online tools, you can connect to very nearly any country in the world. And do it in your own good time. If mornings work best for you, do your tutoring in the morning. If you are a night person, well, shift your schedule to night time tutoring. No matter what time of day or night you choose, there will be people up and around, and anxious for your information.
START UP COSTS ARE MINIMAL. Like many home businesses, the overhead is minuscule. A computer, an internet connection, perhaps some tutoring of your own to get you up and running in a jiffy. A few other rather minimal investments and you are up and operating.
POTENTIAL REWARDS ARE PROMISING. Some tutors charge $20 an hour; some charge $200. What you can charge depends a great deal on the demand for your expertise.
TREMENDOUS VERSATILITY. No matter what your expertise, there is someone who wants to know it. Honest. If you can teach it in person, you can teach it on the internet. Language tutors, science tutors, life coaches, professional coaches, tutors for special learners, tutors for adults as well as for children, for college students and grammar school students. All of those clients are as close as your computer.
There is one big caveat. Many “gurus” will tell you that you can put up a website and people will flock to your site to read what you have to say. Well, I am here to tell you that it just ain’t so. I’ve worked with hundreds of start up companies, many with websites, and I know very well that it does take time to build your website and generate traffic so that you can attract clients.
A tutoring business is like any other business: It just takes a bit of time to build up clientele. If you can give yourself some time to accomplish that, you can enjoy one of the most creative, and one of the most rewarding, businesses to come along in a very long time.…
12May
Techniques for Naming Your Tutoring Business

Business name parts
Small businesses or new businesses often have two parts to their business names. The first part can be described as the unique part and the second part is the descriptive portion. Some people try to use only a unique name for their business without a descriptive part. This is generally a bad idea for small businesses because without the descriptive portion people won’t know what services your business offers. Over time as your brand becomes well-known in your market you should be able to drop the descriptive portion of your name and people will still know what business you’re in.
The unique portion of a business name takes many forms. The following list contains several variations of the unique portion that are often used for tutoring business names.
Aspirational
Tutoring businesses often use words related to success, reaching goals, and succeeding since these are some of the reasons people hire tutors. Words like “Elite”, “Ivy”, “A+”, and so on are examples of aspirational words. Check the thesaurus for more ideas for your business. Words like these are great for a tutoring business name because people will begin to associate your business with success.
Geography – Tutoring companies often operate in specific geographic markets so including the name of your market in your company’s name is a good strategy. For example, you might name your company “Grand Rapids Tutoring” if your company is based in Grand Rapids. A name that includes your location is an effective way to communicate to people in your area that you offer tutoring for their area.
Unique Value
Many businesses have a unique value proposition – something that distinguishes them from their competitors. If your business offers some kind of unique value to customers you might want to include this in your business name. Examples include words like “Traveling”, “One-on-One”, or “Total Math”. Unique value propositions can be related to your method of teaching, grade level, subject you specialize in, etc.
Subject Specific
If your tutoring company specializes in a single subject you might want to create a unique name related to the subject in which you specialize. Unique names can include words in a foreign language you teach, terminology such as “Pi”, or names of influential figures in your subject such as “da Vinci”, “Pascal” or “Einstein”.
Personal Name
Using your own last name in the name of your tutoring business is another useful technique for naming your business. Many successful companies have used this naming technique (i.e. Kumon, Huntington Learning Centers in the United States, Kip McGrath in Australia. This technique can become even more effective if you are already well-known for your work in the education field.
The second part of your business name should be the descriptive portion. Including words such as tutoring, tutors, education, academy, learning, learning center, etc. The descriptive portion of your business name is what tells people what your company does. This is very important when your business is starting out since you want to begin establishing a link between the unique part of your business name and the descriptive portion in people’s minds.
Conclusion
The naming techniques above should help you generate several ideas. By creating different combinations of the unique and descriptive portions you can create even more name variations. Create a list of your top ideas and ask your friends or coworkers which ones they like the best and you’ll have a name that will help your business grow and establish a strong brand.…
2Feb
Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Tutoring From a Business Perspective

Technology has improved significantly over the last 20 years to the point where it is now quite easy and cost-efficient to provide tutoring services online. While many independent tutors and tutoring companies view this as a favorable change in the industry it also poses many threats to existing businesses. Many articles look at the advantages and disadvantages of online tutoring from the perspective of the student – this article will explore this topic from the perspective of the tutoring business.
Advantages
The availability of technology for online tutoring is most advantageous to new tutors or tutoring companies that are not yet established in the market. Online tutoring requires low start-up costs, it opens the tutor up to a much larger market and offers more flexibility for scheduling. Let’s take a look at each of these advantages one at a time:
Lower barriers to entry
Although many independent tutors also have low start-up costs, if you are a tutoring company and decide to go the online route, you can avoid many of the expenses associated with starting up a traditional tutoring company. Traditional companies often require an office for administration or where tutoring takes place, marketing through local media, driving to meetings to prospective clients, etc. Online tutoring companies do not require an office other than a home office and definitely do not require a building for teaching students. Online marketing is lower cost and can be targeted more directly than traditional marketing, and talking with clients can be done online or by phone. These low start-up costs make it much easier for new businesses to start online.
Larger market
Traditional tutoring companies are limited by geography – they cannot cost-effectively serve students outside of their geographic area due to time-constraints related to transportation and the cost of transportation. For this reason, tutoring companies have much smaller markets and can only enter new markets by adding new locations. Online tutoring businesses do not face this limitation. They can reach anyone with an internet connection and the only real limitation is language. For this reason many individuals prefer to start an online tutoring company so that they can reach a much larger market. This can be a very good strategy if your company teaches a highly specialized subject that would not have enough people locally to support the business.
Tutoring companies can also hire tutors from a much larger area and may be more successful in finding top-quality teachers in the subjects they offer.
Flexibility
Online tutoring companies have more flexibility since they can choose to teach students in different time zones. Tutors that are only available to teach in the late evening can easily teach students from a later timezone where it is afternoon. This makes it easier for independent tutors to fit their tutoring into their personal or work schedule.
Lower operating costs
The ongoing operating costs of running an online tutoring business are also lower than traditional tutoring. Some of the eliminated costs come in the form of building leases, phone, transportation and marketing. Online tutors can do everything from their home, they can use free or low-cost online phones like Skype for communication and they don’t have to spend money driving to the tutoring office or to clients’ homes.
Disadvantages
Many of the advantages of online tutoring can also pose challenges for tutoring companies. We’ll look at the disadvantages below one at a time.
Lower barriers to entry
Low barriers to entry make online tutoring attractive to new tutoring companies, but for incumbents this is a negative since it makes it easier for new companies to enter the market and compete with them. This ultimately leads to more price competition and lower profit margins.
Competition from other markets and other countries
Online tutoring overcomes the geography barrier which is also a disadvantage for existing tutoring businesses. This means that instead of facing competition only from tutoring companies in their immediate market they now face competition from tutors in other parts of the country and in other countries all-together. Many online tutors are from countries like India where the cost of living is much lower. Thy can teach American students online and charge a rate that is still much lower than standard rates in the United States, yet still well above the rate they would earn for tutoring in their own country.
Technology limitations of students
While most people have a personal computer at home and internet access, many students who need tutoring do not have the required technology to receive online tutoring. In addition to a computer, a high-speed internet connection is ideal, a headset and microphone are needed for talking with the tutor, and hardware such as a writing board may be required depending on the subject. This means if your business wants to provide only online …
21Jun
Starting a Home Based Tutoring Business – Or Another Home Based Business That Works

Starting a Home Based Tutoring Business – Why Would You?

If you’re looking at starting a home based tutoring business, it’s likely that you want to enjoy some or all of the many benefits of working from home. There are many, of opportunity to set your own hours, to spend more time with your family, to reduce costs and time lost commuting to and from an office, the flexibility to work whenever you’re in the mood, and on and on the list goes. Also, if you’re looking at starting a home based tutoring business, you probably love to help people. You enjoy watching other people succeed. You have a lot to give, and are a great communicator. You’re able to help other people see their challenges in a new light, and guide them past their roadblocks to find whatever success they might be after. Sound about right?

Starting a Home Based Tutoring Business – Your Tools Are Universal

Fortunately, starting a home based tutoring business is just one of many ways to experience the benefits of working from home, and using the gifts that you have as a person. What you may not realize is that these gifts and tools that you have as a person are very universal in their application. You may not realize it, but there is a serious demand for people with this kind of skill set – great communication, understanding, problem solving, a passion for helping others – and that people with these skills have been known to go far and do great things in their lives.

Especially when you throw in a dash of the entrepreneurial spirit. People with these types of skills often do very well in business, because they make great leaders. They understand that leadership is about being in a position of positive influence. And having a positive influence is about creating a relationship of mutual trust and understanding, and being able to communicate a solution. These skills can be applied in so many avenues…whether you end up starting a home based tutoring business, or looking into other avenues that might involve a similar type of one-on-one coaching and mentoring and still working from home.

Starting a Home Based Tutoring Business – Or Any Other Home Based Business That Works

The bottom line when you’re looking at starting a home based tutoring business, or another more automated online home based business, is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You have a skill set that is an amazing asset. It’s all about finding the right vehicle. Follow these steps when you’re evaluating your options…

Google like crazy – get all the information you can about a given opportunity. Read reviews and articles, watch videos on YouTube, and try to be as objective as possible.

Opt in for more information – whether you’re looking at starting a home based tutoring business or any other kind of home based business, there are people out there who will offer you more information in exchange for your name and email address. There is no harm in this, as you can always opt out later on. But this is generally a great way to learn more about what’s actually involved in a given opportunity.

Talk to a real live person – This may require that you raise your hand in some fashion and ask for someone to give you a call back, but be sure that you talk to someone who is actually doing what you’re looking at doing. This is critical. If you can’t get in touch with a real person, that business opportunity is likely not very legit.

Trust your instincts, and take action!

Maybe starting a home based tutoring business is the right avenue for you to pursue, and maybe you’ll want to look at other options. Whatever you do, be sure to connect with someone who is experiencing the kind of success that you’re after, and try to establish a mentoring relationship with that person. Some of the more automated home based businesses have this type of mentoring built into the business opportunity, and you’re essentially handed a step-by-step pathway for success. Be sure you’re aware of all of the options and opportunities out there, and follow the steps outlined above to guarantee your success in whatever vehicle you choose.…
2Jun
Tutoring From Home – How to Market a Tutoring Business

Starting up a home based tutoring business is hard work. Tutoring is a competitive arena and you’ll frequently be up against people with more experience and bigger social networks (tutoring is ALL about social networks). Follow our 5 top tips to ensure success with your home based tutoring business.

Set your prices low. To start off with you’ll need to be very competitive with your pricing. Find out what tutors are charging locally and makes sure you are charging less. You don’t have experience to offer and unless you are teaching a niche subject you can only really compete on price to begin with.

Offer a free first booking. People love freebies! A free first taster booking will let people “try before they buy”. So it’s zero risk for them, and very important experience for you. Make sure you ask them for feedback at the end of the booking.

Get professionally designed flyers and business cards. A good looking flyer goes a long way when parents are choosing a tutor for their children. Presenting a professional image will do a lot to build confidence and is also a brilliant branding exercise for you. Making sure each happy client leaves with a few of your business cards for their friends can ramp up your clientele in no time. Many shops, community centers and universities have places for flyers. Do a door drop in your local area with a special offer on it.

Do deals. People love a deal – Offer 5 bookings for the price of 4, or summer specials, or “Refer a friend, get a free booking”. Its a great and quick way to build up your numbers.

Network network network! Tell your friends to tell their friends about you. Involve yourself in community events where you can hand our your fliers. List yourself on as many tutoring directories as you can. Spread the word via social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.…