Teaching is one of the most rewarding activities. Every teacher can tell you that they have a continuous sense of pride knowing that they contributed to the education of successful professionals and built a strong, educated and empowered generation.
And even though you are not a teacher, you can make a living from teaching other people as a private online tutor. Tutoring home businesses are very successful because there are a lot of people who want to further their education or learn something new, but they have neither the time nor the money to attend college. They would rather pay for online tutoring lessons and then get certified on their own.
If you are an expert in a certain domain, you can start your own internet home business as a tutor. These are the five basic steps to building your own small business from home:
1. Get Certified
If you want to be successful as a tutor, you have to bring proof that you are really good at what you want to teach. Certification gives you an extra advantage over other online tutors, and is a good justification for your fees.
Certification can take some time (tests, examinations, other specific procedures for the state you live in), so you should start inquiring ahead of time if you have a specific moment in mind when you want to launch your tutoring home business.
2. Decide What Age Group You Want to Teach
Teaching a child is different from teaching an adult. Children require more patience, and you may even need extra certification to be allowed to work with them. On the other hand, adults want to gain specialization in a certain field, so you will have to teach at a higher level.
It all depends on your level of confidence in dealing with a specific age group. It is very important to be relaxed and able to teach your students with clarity.
3. Stock up on Teaching Materials
If you want to be a good tutor, you need to have various teaching materials available – exercise books, reading materials, ebooks and other digital materials which you will both use during your tutoring classes, and give to your students for further study and homework.
Remember to stay up to date with the latest study books, or developments in your field of specialization. This is the only way of being successful as a tutor.
4. Determine Your Ongoing Costs and Your Fees
Any business, even a small internet home business, has one final purpose: to be profitable. If you want to make money as an online tutor, you have to be savvy in estimating your operating costs, taxes, insurance, etc., and in determining how much you should charge per tutoring session.
There are two caveats here: one, the inadequate estimation of costs, which makes you undervalue your fee – it will be more difficult to raise it in a short period of time to cover your losses without losing some students; and two, setting a fee which is significantly higher than the market average, which will leave you with very few enrolled students.
5. Brand and Market Your Tutoring Home Business
Every business needs to stand out through a specific brand image. As we stated earlier in this article, online tutoring is a very popular internet home business idea. This is why you need to create a brand image to differentiate yourself from other online tutors teaching the same subject – point out your strengths, specific teaching methods and any other thing which you think makes you special from other tutors.
This brand image should be consistently communicated through all your marketing materials, and the content you share on your blog and on the social media. Do not neglect offline marketing tactics either. A short ad posted on the messaging board of your local supermarket, as well as attending educational and book fairs are also great opportunities to make your tutoring business known.
In the end, remember that once you have gained the first students it is totally up to you to make a good impression, to be a good tutor and to attract more students through word of mouth. Good luck!