Getting your first few students
Putting yourself out there as a tutor takes a lot of commitment. Always in the back of your mind knowing that no- one may be interested. Each day you put one foot in front of the other and keep going in the belief that today will be the day!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1231634/episodes/19266972
But then you put out your next post and once again it feels like you are shouting into the void and all you hear back are the echos of silence.
You decide to put on a brave face, you believe you can do this. Just 1 more attempt.
Then something in life happens that you have no control over. Probably something completely unrelated to the business that you are trying to build and it stops you in your tracks.
A part of you thinks why am I bothering with this. It feels like time to quit. To admit defeat and accept it's harder work than you ever anticipated.
I know exactly how you feel. I was there with the tutoring at times over the years and now with building the franchise. You see other people and they make it look so easy.
The truth is, most people don’t share this part.
The posts met with silence. The no replies. The self-doubt.
But this is the part that everyone goes through - whether they admit it or not
But I suspect everyone has their down days. Just take a day to give yourself a break (a couple of years back whilst Hay was at Uni, I jumped on the next train to London and met her for lunch. This was extreme it may be just an episode of a program you enjoy with a cup of tea) and start again tomorrow.
The secret to the success is to keep going, no matter how many "one more attempts" you need, keep taking them because one day you will get that call, then another and you have started to live the dream that a couple of months back felt so far out of reach.
But actually, it only takes one or two people to know what you are doing and to spread the word for you and you will suddenly take traction, and things will start to happen. You may decide to offer a couple of lessons for free to help speed the process up.
One of the things that I also did was to have magnets on the side of my car so that when I was in someone’s house tutoring, people would see it and it was a conversation starter.
Not long after I started, I was working at a child’s home and one evening the mum went out to dinner with friends. The magnets had started a conversation which led to both parents phoning the next morning to ask for support for their sons. I still work with the niece of one of those families now and they have each spread the word for me more times than I can mention.
I was also lucky enough to tutor the local lolly-pop lady’s daughter. (I was lucky because a) they are a really lovely family, but b) the lolly-pop lady knows every family in the village and became one of my biggest and loudest cheerleaders).
All it took was a couple of bits of “luck” and I was off.
So, hold on and luck will find you out. As I say, it takes time and effort, it’s not easy, but it is most definitely worth it.
If you’re at that stage where you’re thinking “is this even worth it?” you don’t have to work it out on your own.
I recently wrote a book: Become a Tutor. Build Confidence. Change Lives. It answers the questions that I had when I first started tutoring. If you would like a free copy (no strings attached just a gift from me to you) drop me an email at [email protected] or click on this link:
