Apr 17, 2018
Whether looking to scale up or join a bigger team, tutoring centers offer individual tutors a great opportunity to grow personally and their business in a collaborative environment.
Striking out as an independent tutor has its perks. After all, it’s your own business so you call all the shots. Your schedule is yours, and your workload is whatever amount of work that fits your full- or part-time needs (if you can manage to scale up).
For many tutors, going at it alone might not be the best choice, for a variety of reasons – and benefits, too. So what can joining a small- to medium-size, independent tutoring company do for the individual tutor?
1. Build Co-Mentoring Relationships
Tutors can learn from other tutors, and a tutoring company can provide an ideal collaborative space for tutors.
Tutors who were (or are) school teachers intimately know the ups and downs of working in a school environment. A major positive is collaboration: the ability for educators to share knowledge and practices and grow professionally together.
Some teachers-turned-tutors, like Mary Miele, wanted the independence and personalized focus on students that tutoring offers, and set up and scaled her own tutoring business, Evolved Education Company. “I missed the collaboration and supportive network that came with working in a school,” Mary says. “There was also no sense of professionalism or a place to evolve skills within the tutoring or consulting space.”
Tutors, new and old to the profession, can build a professional development program, or find ways to integrate credentialing and other professional skill-building programs into their business model.
2. Grow Professional Networks
Coming together allows tutors to pool resources toward scaling the business, opening up opportunities that might have been too costly or time-prohibitive for the individual tutor.
Hiring an admin to handle the nuts and bolts of the business can free up time otherwise spent tutoring and expanding your client networks.
The same goes for bringing in new talent, or tutors who are only looking for part-time work, by hiring associate tutors. Delegating the workload can offer tutors who want more experience on the business side of the operation to focus on building a thriving company.
Tutoring companies that operate out of a co-working space give tutors a unique advantage: a convenient hub for networking within and beyond the profession, and another opportunity for business referrals. (Did we mention co-working spaces are 100% tax deductible?)
3. A Web of Specializations
There is a tutor for every subject (we’ve counted 11 types of tutors so far).
An individual tutor might find it difficult in their client market to make a viable business out of their particular specialization. Tutoring companies offer each tutor the chance to specialize and learn from each other’s subject areas: professional development and practical business knowhow wrapped up in one.
Is joining a tutoring center right for your tutoring potential? For tried and true and new tutoring professionals, the answer can only come with exploring what works independently, and where tutors see the personal and professional advantages of working together.
