Be an Online Tutor with Tutorially Part 1

Online tutoring is a profitable business, no doubt about that – in the UK alone, BILLIONS of pounds are spent annually! Recent studies have reported more than 25% of students have used private tuition services, with that figure passing 40% in the capital. Once you factor in adult students, the potential marketplace for an online tutor is huge!  This industry is developing rapidly with a near-constant stream of innovative technologies and ever-increasing Internet speeds making face-to-face tuition by wire an accessible reality for everyone, from anywhere!  Parents and students are comfortable with online tutoring delivering their personalised learning requirements in the safety and comfort of their homes or preferred learning environment, providing accessible and convenient tuition services that fit increasingly busy lives. 

Life as an online tutor can be fantastic – flexibility, financial rewards and the freedom to fit work around family commitments as well as outside interests and other work. Online tutors get to work with students from varied cultural backgrounds and geographic territories, and a global working day has no boundaries! Through one-on-one sessions scheduled at times that suit everyone, they help students to reach the heights of their potential.

As Tutorially™ members know, once a tutor understands the advantages of online tutoring, getting started is a no-brainer. The question becomes how to get started, and how to build a successful online tuition business, and in the first of this two-part series, we'll find out how to get started as an online tutor with Tutorially™.

Requirements To Become An Online Tutor

The requirements for an online tutor are the same as standard face-to-face – an aptitude for the subject, and tuition as a profession, plus access to appropriate technology to allow online lessons – namely a camera and a suitable platform.

Generally, online tutors are professional teachers and subject-area experts. Often, an online tutor will have academic qualifications such as:

• A teaching certification, or teaching experience.
• A degree, Master’s degree or PhD.
• Subject-specific certification.

Although these qualifications are not set in stone, having them will certainly help you establish credibility early on, bringing in students and building trust with reputation. If you do not possess such qualifications, you may find reducing tuition prices when starting out will allow you to build a student-base, and gathering testimonials and recommendations from those students will help you attract more. Prove your tuition business with results!

About Online Tutoring Students

Becoming an Online Tutor is a very popular option today since the majority of students spend a tremendous amount of time online already. There are several advantages to both the tutor and student in terms of access and availability – no longer are tutor and student limited by their location, suddenly the world is at your fingertips! Parents of younger students may prefer tuition online in the safety of the home, and tutors certainly love the time and money saved when one no longer has to travel!

The majority of online tutoring students are middle and high school students, especially those preparing for examinations or school entrance assessments. These students need to be helped in core subjects like maths, sciences, and English. Apart from these, some tutors also find success tutoring students in non-core subjects or even guide them through college admission process. They also provide mentoring, career counselling, etc.

How To Become An Online Tutor And Start Tutoring

Once you’ve decided to become an online tutor, there is a fairly well-established path to building a business. Some variation between countries and providers is to be expected, but the essentials remain constant.

• Set up your own website. This is a step often overlooked, but a good website is worth its weight in gold! You want to build a brand based on your tuition talents and reputation – where better to do it than your own Internet site?
• Register with Online tuition companies. This is often the first recommendation made for novice tutors and can be helpful for securing students, especially when starting out. You will have to fill the online form providing your credentials, basic bio information, profile photo, tutoring preferences etc. Some companies also ask for certificates, proof of education, and ID.
• Choose your online collaboration tools. If you’re working with students using a computer, you are going to need to establish your workspace. A computer and a webcam, as well as somewhere sensible to locate them, are a good start. You will then need some video conferencing software so tutor and tutee can see each other. We then get into a myriad of options for file sharing, screen sharing, whiteboards and so on. Search engines are your friend there.
• Start tutoring. Use word of mouth, a possible introductory fee-reduction to attract students, and online tuition companies, to attract students and schedule your lessons.
• Business Management. This is where the office admin overheads are – managing students, scheduling lessons, updating parents, processing payments (as well as chasing overdue invoices), bookkeeping and all the other jobs that come with online tutoring, eating up time you could be using for earning money.

And that is precisely why we developed Tutorially™.

How Tutorially™ Can Help

Modern software can greatly simplify the running of an online tuition business, and once you’re happy you have the necessary skills to be a tutor, so much of the rest can be done for you. There are several systems available to the modern tutor, but only Tutorially™ offers everything you need:

• A webpage to showcase your business, with student leads from all major search engines to bring you, customers!
• A tutor directory, searchable by registered students by subject and location.
• Video lessons! Do not be limited by your location or spend valuable time and money travelling!
• Schedule management to maximise your income.
• Online payment facility.
• Automated reminders for lessons and invoices to improve payments.
• Accounts overview, giving you and your accountant an easy way to track your income, tax obligations and expenses.
• Comprehensive student management to track all aspects of the education journey.
• Integrated messaging.
• Parental updates – ensuring everyone is up to date.

So Tutorially™ provides a platform for students to find you, a simple means for you to schedule lessons and track students, automatic reminders to maximise income, an online payment facility and accountancy data. All features are available for FREE for tutors just starting out, with tiers designed to support you as your business grows. Online tutors have told us that Tutorially™ saves them double-digit hours per month, representing several hundred pounds-worth of billable time saved!

Hopefully, that helps explain how to become an online tutor with Tutorially™, and you can contact us with any online tutoring questions via the website! Join us for Part 2 to hear more about the ways Tutorially™ can help enable an online tuition business, as well as a rundown of what the whole process looks like from start to finish.

Join the tuition revolution with Tutorially™ - Sign Up totally FREE! See for yourself how the system can benefit your business, as it has many others. You can keep up with the latest Tutorially™ news by following us on Twitter, and be liking us on Facebook.