Tips on finding private students

These are advertising tips for those who want to find private students
AND are working legally (with freelance permits or other paperwork from
tax inspection, this differs from place to place). My tips include publicising
your services so what I want the least is a tax inspector knocking at your door.

1. Advertise local Internet advertising pages. Make sure you put many
buzzwords in your adverts: x years of experience, education, such and
such certificates, a picture/photo of where you teach to show it’s not
a basement but a decent room, native speaker (if you are one). My
adverts are all the same placed on a variety of websites that offer free advertising:
A private teacher with x years of experience and M.A. teaches General,
Business, Conversation and ESP English lessons on private basis and in groups.
Teaching in your company is possible should you have 3-4 people to start
with. I sign contracts, write out a receipt. Rates for lessons are x to y.
Contact: xxxxx. Stating these things is essential because people have to see
that you know what you are doing. I see many illegally working teachers do
the same (and they undercut my rates!) but they usually don’t give guarantees,
live in sleeping districts, can have few lessons after work or late at night, etc.
My rate that is double than their draws attention to the advert

2. Set up a webpage. I have a basic one built by myself but it takes
wisdom to make it be pulled by Google when people are searching for
‘English lessons’, so I turned to a specialist for help and by September
I should have a professional ad-free website where I can advertise my
services. You can start with a blog, too. Make sure it’s named like ‘Private English
Teacher Diary’ or something like that, so search engines pull it up when people
enter keywords. Then go and post in other teacher’s blogs, leaving your name
and blog link I don’t mind exchanging blog links to be put on blogrolls.

3. The printed word. This can result in a) flyers in mailboxes of office buildings
or well-off residential areas that are annoying spam but sometimes is very effective
b) small coloured poster on the billboards in the streets, café notice boards,
other notice boards, bus stops (not sure the latter is legal, by the way!)
c) advertisement of the same content as in Step 1 but in a local newspaper.
Make sure you advertise in the beginning of a high season, it draws attention
(is in bold, etc) and you may want to give only your email because it’s possible
you receive tons of calls and your quiet life is over or you have another phone
for business. Some teachers have been rather sceptical about newspaper
advertising but it does show you’re serious.

4. Business cards. If you want to start it professionally, it’s a good idea to have
business cards. They are cheap to make yourself and not so expensive to have
them made and 100 cards in a set are usually too many for me. Make sure every
person who talks to you about lessons gets one (including those who decide not
to take your lessons) for future reference. Also, you can give a few to your friends
and colleagues so that they can pass them around for people who ask them if they
know somebody who could help them with their English. That’s what friends are for!
Surely, this method is not quick in feedback but it does work.

4. E-mail to local companies. Google up ‘yellow pages’ for companies located in
your area, find their websites/emails and send them a short message about who
you are and what you do. Don’t spam them with your CV or anything, just inquire
if they are interested. This method didn’t work for me but other teachers say
they got positive replies.

5. Your current students. They’ll advertise you anyway when they’re asked
about lessons but you can also tell them you’ll lower the rate per person if they
find and bring a friend or colleague with the same level of English.

The most important thing is to realize that it takes time to become established.
It may take up about two years until you have built up a certain reputation in
the field, drop-out students leave and the faithful ones stay, you can raise your
rates slightly, start turning down students you dislike as people and working
hours you want to work.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 7:21 am and is filed under Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.