Are you having any luck finding students?

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Permalink Reply by Scott Palat on July 8, 2009 at 11:05am

We refer to this as the dog days of summer.

It does require a bit more effort to acquire clients, but it can be done if you approach it the right way.

One of the big words that attract parents during the summer time is "Summer Prep Tutoring". It's also a good idea to include benefits for this type of tutoring..."Give your child and advantage for this upcoming new school year" or "It's easy for your child to get A's with my Summer prep online tutoring".

If you have existing clients, be sure to offer your prep services to them too. Most parents will gladly pay for this type of service if you just let them know about your summer prep program.

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Permalink Reply by Christian Stapfer on July 19, 2009 at 11:38am

Hi,
Generally speaking, I do not have much trouble finding students. - But then, I am in Europe (Switzerland), and my tutoring happens to be free (as in free beer).
I take it from one of your earlier posts that, judging from my limited experience you are doing all the right things: placing advertisements and linking them to further information about you / your tutoring service on the web.
Speaking of your web-presence: Have you ever systematically tried to learn from others how they judge your web-presence? - If not: this might possibly help you fine-tune your web-presence quite a bit. (This is not to say that I am particularly proud of my own web-presence: but if I did happen to find it particularly difficult to attract students, then I would, among other things, certainly start worrying some more about it than I usually do.)
Also: The requests I get from interested students very clearly come in seasonal waves. Sometimes I get too few other times I get (far!) too many requests. (Ideally, one would be part of a network of tutors that can pass requests along to their peers, if they get too many - and who can ask others to similarly pass requests to themselves, if possible.)
Maybe, since this is summer-time, you experience the same seasonal "drought" in the arrival of new students as I do, here in Switzerland?
Fortunately, since I do online-tutoring only as a hobby I can take such droughts with equanimity. If anyone asks for my help during the summer-holydays it is almost certainly one of the students that has already developed a kind of long-term relationship with me (qua online-tutor). This is the usual case, since, as I wrote, my tutoring happens to be free: thus "long-term", for them, does not imply a huge prior investment of money...
My best wishes,
Christian

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Permalink Reply by Scott Palat on July 19, 2009 at 12:15pm

Thanks for sharing your story Christian!

It sounds like your passion for tutoring is real deep! I don't know of very many tutors who work for free. I assume you have a full time source of income and that's why you choose to tutor without excepting payment. That's a great attitude to have!

I am in the process of trying to volunteer my time as a summer time sports camp administrator/teacher. We are trying to start a free program for kids where they can come and learn the basics about sports and most importantly have fun. I have a passion for teaching kids through sport.

The summer time tutoring opportunities are what you make of them. For any tutor who is proactive and seeks out existing clients (students), these tutors seem to benefit the most. In many cases, parents aren't even aware that their child's tutor can offer summer programs unless the tutor mentions it.

Summer time is what you make of it. If you want to drum up some business, I recommend sending a letter, email or even calling them to offer your summer prep tutoring courses or any other type of tutoring you feel comfortable with.

I like your idea for the network of tutors and I agree that things come all at once or barely at all. I find that to be true with many things...including golf where I can shoot par, par, birdie, par or...bogey, double bogey, bogey, bogey.

In my opinion, tutoring, golf and even life comes down to what you believe. If you believe your summer tutoring program will be busy and you put in some basic effort, you can attract new clients or some of your other students who you worked with in the past.

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