You want to leave teaching, so what are your options?
1 – Find a new job starting at the bottom of the ladder again, taking a pay cut
2 – Retrain in a different career – costing you money in the short term with no pay in the medium term
3 – Monetize your existing skillset to start an online course or tuition business and get paid NOW!
So let’s say you picked number 3 – then the doubt creeps in. You don’t want to fill your days with 1:1 tuition.
You know how draining this will be, and in order to fully replace your teaching salary you’ll basically be transferring all that workload from your teaching job onto your own shoulders every day.
Fortunately – there is another way to structure your tuition business so that you’re teaching for just 2 hours per week, instead of 20 – with the ability to not only replace your salary, but to double it!
And what if I told you that you can teach anything you like (think hobbies, or bits of your job that you love) and it’s better to just teach one thing at one level instead of being a Jack-of-all-trades?
And that less is more?
Charging more brings you better clients?
No more inventing the wheel – just one programme that you run over and over again?
How much more ‘life’ would you have time for? It’s an exciting thought, right?
You won’t be surprised to learn that I’m not a massive fan of 1:1 tuition as a means or creating reliable, full-time income.
It’s not that it can’t work – it really can (until it doesn’t, haha).
But there’s something soul-destroying about getting out of your teaching job to start your own business, only to find that you are kinda back where you started.
– Planning 10-20 lessons per week
– Zoom burnout replacing classroom burnout
– The pure exhaustion that results from serving and emailing and texting and juggling so many clients
BUT, I’m getting ahead of myself. Ultimately, you’ve got to choose for yourself.
So here’s a quick rundown of the key differences:
1:1 Model
When you tutor all the subjects you can to all the age / ability groups you can on a 1:1 basis
Pros
- You can say yes to almost anyone who asks
- You get to teach a variety of different things
- You can get started right away
Cons
- Having to be reactive to the needs of each client (you fitting with them instead of them fitting with you)
- High pressure: intense sessions which can be draining
- High workload as you need lots of clients (typically 10-20 per week) and it’r rare that you can reuse lesson plans for more than 1 client
- Peak and trough income months – you don’t earn when you take holidays, or when your clients don’t show up or take breaks
- Unreliable: earnings dependent on whether or not a client rebooks for the following week or month
- Earning ceiling: there is only one of you and your time in finite – you cannot scale your earnings beyond the number of clients you can physically see each week
- Can feel as though you’ve just swapped one highly stressful teaching job for another
2 Hour Tutor model
Where you decide on just one thing to teach for one type of client and develop a group programme
Pros
- You create the programme once
- Serve similar people who all want the same outcome in one or 2 zooms per week
- Steady monthly sales
- Community feel can actually get better results for your clients
- Consistent income
- Audience buys when they need it and can jump on at any time
- Easy to scale
- No planning
- You get bags more free time
- You have time for other side projects, hobbies and holidays!
Not cons so much but things you do need to think about:
- Choosing the thing that you would love to teach most and for whom
- Not saying ‘yes’ to every other tutoring opportunity that comes along
So there you have it. If 1:1 tuition is working for you and you love it – hats off to you!
If the thought of high pressure 1:1 work makes you want to hide, here are 2 ways I can help you map out and launch your tuition business:
1. Book a free Game Plan call
Thinking about getting a proper tuition business off the ground? I have a simple progress pathway to 2 and 3k months and we will map this out together:
2. Work with me closely in my 4 month mentorship programme, the 2 Hour Tutor
If you’d like to work directly with me to create a scalable group programme, or turn your existing 1:1 tuition business into a group programme … just
reply back with the subject line ‘2 Hour Tutor’ and I’ll get you the details.
This is for you if you:
- Have already quit / decided to quit teaching
- Are serious about creating a tuition biz that replaces or exceeds your teaching income
