5 Tips On How To Start A Tutoring Business Online

5 tips on how to start a tutoring business online

This video is for you if you:

• Are a teacher (or want to become an online teacher) and want to know how to teach online classes and earn money
• Want to start a tutoring business online or offline using what you know in your field
• Are looking into ideas about side businesses for teachers  
• Are looking for  tutoring business ideas or business ideas in the education field
• Are searching for a tutoring business model
• Are thinking of how to start your own online education business and looking into teaching as a business
• Or just want to learn how to teach online

But first thing’s first:

Why am I qualified to speak on this topic?

Well, first of all, I am the founder, owner, and director of a tutoring center. This isn’t an online tutoring business, it’s an offline business. And that’s how I got my start back in 2011. Since then, I’ve been able to set up several successful online businesses in the education field. For one of my businesses I recruit teachers who are looking for ESL teacher jobs for schools around the world. In another one of my businesses, I do teacher training and coaching. And on top of that, I teach people how to set up their own online teaching business and I give them steps on starting an online school, share my tutoring business plan, help them with their online tutoring business model, show them how to advertise tutoring and much more. Sometimes it is a teacher side business and sometimes it is a full-time, full blown online school. Whether you want to teach English online, or start teaching guitar, or start teaching piano, or start teaching art classes, you can start teaching at 40, 50, 60 years old, or when you are 18. It doesn’t matter how old you are because I’ve come up with a method that works for teachers of any age and helps teachers start an online education business of any type.

So yeah, I’ve seen how it works. I’ve gone through this experience of starting businesses in the education field a lot of times. And not only myself but people who I work with have gone through this process of teaching as a business as well. So I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work, not only from my perspective, but also from the perspective of many other teachers who have started their own online education business.

I am sharing these 5 tips on how to start a tutoring business online with you because I see a lot of teachers who are just starting out, who are looking for part time online teaching jobs from home, who are trying to find the best paying online teaching jobs, and who are teaching an online course for the first time and struggling. When in fact, they just need some help and they need a system.

In my programs I lay out every step that I’ve taken to build successful online businesses in the education field. It is not a theoretical program. It is very practical and you can apply what you’ve learned right away and start your businesses in the education field as soon as you want.

To find out more about it, you can go here: www.teaching-revolution.com

Now here are 5 tips on how to start a tutoring business online :

Tip #1. Mindset. Stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like an entrepreneur.

First of all, let’s talk about mindset. One of the biggest problems I see with teachers who first come into my training program is that they don’t have the right mindset. They are still thinking that somebody is going to tell them what to do every step of the way and that’s what they are going to get paid for. Honestly, when you are starting your own business you are becoming an entrepreneur. You are a business owner. And you need to understand what that means because that comes with a lot of responsibility. Being a business owner and being an entrepreneur requires a different mindset than being an employee or having a teaching job. When you have a teaching job and you take a sick day you don’t really think about how it affects the business. You just say: “I need rest, so I called in sick and I stayed home”. But when you start a tutoring business calling out sick doesn’t happen because what are you going to do? Call yourself? So it is very important to understand that one of the things that you need to do when you first make the decision to start an education business is you need to change your mindset.

There are a lot of traditional ideas out there that tell teachers they have to do it a certain way. But, in reality, there are a lot of different ways you can do things. There are very simple steps that you can take to make starting an online school or any type of tutoring business happen very quickly.

A lot of teachers have the mentality of: if I build it, they will come. One one hand - YES! - You have to build it before people will come, participate, and buy your product or service. But on the other hand, just building it is not enough. You know, if you just start a Facebook group page or if you just start a website, nobody is going to be attracted to it. You have to generate activity and interest. You have to promote yourself and advertise tutoring. Doing that is actually much simpler than you might think.

Tip #2. Don’t listen to the noise.

My second tip about how to start a tutoring business is don’t listen to the noise. Right now I want you to go to Google and search for “Start an online teaching business”. You are going to find a lot of noise. I mean how many of those people have actually started education businesses? Ask yourself that. I mean, how difficult is it to write something online? Make sure you do some research and understand who is giving you this information and why. Anybody can position themselves as an expert online, right? Well, maybe not anybody. But make sure you do your research. Don’t listen to the noise. You don’t want to spend months and months using the wrong information to create your tutoring business plan, choose your tutoring business model, and build your education business, and not have the proper foundations. Foundations are very important when you are just starting your tutoring business.

Tip #3. Don’t quit your day job.

When I first started my teaching business I already had a full-time job. I was teaching English online and offline and I was also starting my education business as my teacher side business. This meant that I had 30 to 40 hours of work as a teaching English job and at the new job that I was creating for myself I also had 30 to 40 hours a week. That was about 80 hours a week every week for 6 months. You don’t have to do that. You can go at your own pace. You don’t have to throw a bunch of time away. You don’t have to redo things over and over again. Starting an online school or an offline school can be much simpler. So, don’t quit your day job until you start generating enough revenue for yourself to cover at least all of your daily expenses. I think this is pretty much common sense, but you would be surprised by how many teachers think: “Alright, I am starting an ESL tutoring business, so I need to quit teaching english online now” or “OK, I’m starting an online school, so I need to quit the school where I currently work now.” And you might hear from other people out there that you need to dedicate yourself a 100% to your new education business. I understand that what they are trying to tell you is that you need to be enthusiastic about your tutoring business. You need to be excited to start teaching on your own. You need to be focused on your teaching business. But quitting your day job will only put a lot of unnecessary pressure on you. Instead, you should find an expert, someone who has really started an education business and preferably not only one. It could take years to start an education business if you don’t know the proper steps.

Tip #4. Target a specific audience.

This is a great tip if you are starting an online business in general. You need to identify the target audience that you are going to be directing your product towards. When you are brainstorming business ideas in the education field you need to have this in mind. When you are designing your teaching product, you need to have this in mind. When you are coming up with your  tutoring business model, or designing your marketing plan, or thinking about how to advertise tutoring, you need to have this in mind. You always need to be thinking about your target audience because, after all, they are the ones you are doing this for. One of the things that I hate to see is when people teach online classes or sell teaching products just to make money. Online teaching products need to solve a problem. Your students and your target audience have an issue and they want a solution. That is what an education business should sell. We are not selling some product just to get money in our pockets and to steal it from other people. We are selling something that works, something that is valuable, something useful, and something that isn’t going to make those people hate us later. And that all starts by identifying who you are selling it to.

Tip #5. Remember that you don’t know everything.

I also do not know everything and I will be the first person to admit it. I think true intelligence is being able to know what you don’t know and being able to admit that. So, always understand what you don’t know. That will help you go out there and learn it. I am not saying that you don’t know everything because I think that I am smarter than you or something like that. I am saying that you don’t know everything and it’s a good stimulus to learn more. And that especially applies to starting anything new for yourself and starting an online business.

So, let’s do a quick recap of what you need to do to start a teaching business. First of all, take the mindset of an entrepreneur. Now you are a business owner, not an employee. Second, don’t listen to the noise. Anybody can write something online and that doesn’t mean it’s valuable. Find true experts to learn from. Third, don’t quit your day job. Make sure that you start your tutoring business before you quit your job and your business generates money before you decide to transition over to teaching independently full-time. Fourth, identify your target audience. Know who you are selling to so you can say the right things, sell the right things, and really help people. And lastly, number five, remember that you don’t know everything and use that as a stimulus to go out there and learn it. You have to be a master of your craft if you want to be successful.