Some Final Advice

Now that you’re in “wait and see” mode, here’s some final advice.

1. Be patient. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get clients right away. Some times of the school year are much busier than others.

2. Don’t quit your day job! Tutoring is great supplemental income, but it is not lucrative enough to be a sole source of income if you keep an honest business model (not upselling your clients.) The most I’ve seen people get away with is working part time days somewhere and offering more tutoring hours in the afternoon. Like I said in an earlier post, tutoring is a feast or famine business. Most of your clients will realize that there will be some topics they’ll understand just fine and won’t need to see you on a consistent basis. I can’t tell you how many tutors are viewed as smarmy and charlatans because they try and get their clients to agree to a monthly account (Tutor centers like Score! are notorious for this.) Also, the timing of the school year needs to be taken into consideration. When the school year is busy, I have made $1000-$2000/month. During the summer, I’ve made $300-$600/month. Do not listen to people who claim you can tutor and become wealthy. You can’t. The people saying so are usually selling you their books and other marketing services to supplement their tutoring income. If they were making so much money tutoring, they wouldn’t resort to that. It reminds me of companies that claim you can get rich selling real estate. What makes more money, selling the real estate or the selling of the real estate system?

3. Set limits. It won’t take you long to decide what kinds of students you are and aren’t willing to tutor, what areas you are and aren’t willing to travel to, and what your availability is. Once you make those decisions, stick by them.

And that’s it. Happy tutoring! The rest of this blog will deal with the pangs of the business (how to deal with no call no shows, etc) and evolving as a tutor.