Episode Transcription

11: Covering Her Rent in Less Than 12 Months!

Hello, lovely lady. Welcome to Classroom To Business, the podcast designed specifically for teachers working to become successful businesswomen and creating financial freedom and lifestyle flexibility. I'm Kirsty Gibbs business coach mentor for educators and teachers just like you who are ready to step away from the classroom and create something.

The Classroom to Business Podcast is committed to helping you grow your business, break down those barriers to success, and replace your teaching salary without having to work more hours. It is time for you to find freedom and start being your own boss so you can once again enjoy what you do and wake up each morning loving life.

Let's get. So today I am extremely excited to be bringing you a real life fellow tutor and also member of the tutoring Growth Membership, Emma Lion. So Emma is from set for school in Sydney. She, as I said, is a member of the tutoring growth Membership, and I wanted to bring her on today. Just to get some insight as to what it's like having a business in the industry.

So welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me and asking me to be on your show. I love your podcast and I'm even getting tips offered as well, even though I'm in the Mastermind, so it's great. Awesome. So I thought we would kick off and I wanted you to just share with us a little bit more about your business.

What is. Exactly that you do, because as we know, having an educational business is quite a big range. So can you tell us a little bit more about who you work with and who you serve, and what services you actually provide? Yep. So we, my, it's myself and my sister who started the business and we're both early childhood trained and I'm also primary school teacher.

So we both wanted to get outta the classroom and we were thinking of something to do that used our skills in the classroom and teaching. And we came up with a school readiness business. So we started our school readiness business last April, and we're trying, Fan to tutoring as well for primary school kids.

And we also do holiday fun programs, which the kids really enjoy too. So it's been a big learning curve, but we're loving every second of it. That's my favorite time of the week being in the studio. Oh, that's so good. I, yeah, like obviously I love what I do. I get to wake up every single day and work with amazing people like you, and I feel so lucky to do that.

So when I know. You and, and you know, our other members are waking up and doing that as well. It's, yeah, makes me very happy. So tell me what got you started, I mean, you touched on it then, but was there a specific time or event or anything that happened while you were in the classroom? Or was it just something that, you know, was it matter of time and it just built up?

So I actually haven't been in the classroom since before my kids. So my oldest daughter is now six and a half, and I was looking at getting back into teaching long story. I've split from my husband, so single mom wanting to do something for my kids and set up the future. And classroom teaching just didn't appeal to me with two young kids.

So I wanted to do some sort of, And that was what started, I wanted to do something with my sister cuz we both have the same values when we're teaching. We teach very much the same, which is great. Um, we're on the same page. And yeah, it came from there. It was that big kick that I needed to do something by myself.

It's something that's always been at the back of my mind to do like some sort of small business, but I just wasn't sure. And yeah, big change in my life made me open up and go, yep, this is the time to do it. And it's been great. Best thing I've ever done. I love that. I mean, firstly, well done you, because that would've been a massive step.

You know, it's a massive step for anybody starting their own business, let alone that situation. But also, let's just celebrate the fact that. You did it. And there are people out there saying, oh, I, you know, it's too hard. And coming up with all the excuses and, and you just said, no, I'm making this happen.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm assuming that your kids are a big part of your wife or your business and everything that you do, so that's similar for myself. And I love that when you've got something that drives you, that's, I think, when we push ourselves out of our comfort zone and make things happen. So That's so cool.

Yeah. Definitely. So what are some of the biggest challenges or hurdles that you've had to jump over or get through work through since you've been in business? Probably the first hurdle was finding the perfect space. So that took us a long time. We actually tried to start our business just before Covid kicked off, and then it was put on hold.

Of course. Yeah. So we did do some at home kits and tried to look at doing online tutoring, but we just didn't have the. There or the name behind us. So then as soon as Covid was lifted, we are like, right, we need to find a studio space for it. But that took a couple of months and we were very particular with what we wanted and we found the perfect space, which we're so glad that we held off Some other hurdles is just the enrollment time is very hard when, for at the beginning of the year, which is always very slow, I, it's starting to ramp up a bit now, but.

First, first few weeks and getting into term is a little bit of a struggle to get the numbers in, but we can just see an increase coming and end of last year we were completely booked up, so we know it will happen again. It's just time to be patient. Awesome. And actually, I'm gonna ask you a question and put you on the spot here, but did you ever wanna give up, like I work with so many ladies who start their businesses and they're really excited and they're passionate, and they get in there and they've got these great dreams and they know exactly what they want to do.

but they expect that to happen in the first three, six months, and then they come to me really? Disheartened, I guess because they aren't fully booked or because they aren't making the same amount that they were making in the classroom. Was that you at all? Um, I think I'm really lucky that I'm in business with my sister, so we prop each other up.

Like I think we both have those moments and we're like, no, we've totally, we're giving ourselves a year, so it's almost been a year and we were able to cover rent. So that was our number one goal. So we're in it for the long haul now because we've. Work. But I think we're really lucky that we have each other to bounce ideas off and to pro, like support each other and go, no, we've got this.

It's gonna work. We can make it happen. But definitely those sorts do creep into your mind going, it's all too hard. I don't know how to do business. I don't know how to do email marketing or, or those ins and outs of that you don't have to do when you're teaching in a classroom. Yeah, exactly. I think we.

Sometimes we've got these amazing skills that we can easily put into a business being the tutoring, the teaching. Mm-hmm. , the extension, the ex extension. But it's just those fine tuning or sometimes even learning from scratch, those business skills. But I think you are very lucky. Like you said, you've got your sister, because sometimes business can be lonely.

Mm-hmm. definitely. You know, and no one will ever love your business as you. And I think it's fantastic that you've got your sister there with you to love it with you as much as you. That's so cool. So what you've said that, you know, you gave yourself a year to make your rent, that was your goal, and I just do want to point out to our listeners, The goal was to cover the rent, right?

The goal wasn't to cover the rent and make a hundred thousand dollars profit in 12 months. No, that is quite a realistic, so Emma's goal is quite realistic. So if you are considering starting a tutoring business and you've gone out and taken a lease on a premises, which is totally great. I mean, I did the same thing as well when I started.

You have to be. Of what's realistic. Always aim big. I am all for big and scary goals, but you also have to be realistic so that when you get to the end of 12 months, if you were expecting to make a hundred thousand and cover your rent and you hadn't been putting in the work, it's not gonna happen. So that's the self on a tangent there.

Goals make them realistic. So what do you see happening? For set for school in the next 12 months. What are you working on at the moment? So we are working on bringing on some more tutors to open up our primary school tutoring of an afternoon, which is going to help build our brand awareness as well.

We're hoping to have, hopefully by the end of the year, is running school readiness classes four days a week. So at the moment we're three days a week, we'd like to add another day and double classes if at all possible. We're dreaming big. I love it. I love it. So good. And I think you've done it. I mean, there's no real right or wrong way, but you've gone in a way that you've built some really solid foundations and obviously you've been, you know, in the tutoring growth membership for a while now, so that's been helping with that side of things.

But something that you just touched on, which I'm going to ask you, is about brand awareness. , how did you build your brand awareness, and why do you personally think that it's important? Well, I've learnt lots of you about brand awareness. Well, I just think you need to be the person that people turn to in your industry.

We wanna be the specialists of school readiness. So if parents are worried about their child being ready for school, they'll message us on Instagram. They don't have to be one of our clients. We're happy to help whoever messages us. It's more about. being that authority figure in the industry. And that's what we wanna be the people that people turn to for school readiness and go, yep, EMI and Susan know what they're talking about.

Let's message them. Fantastic. So do you get, you know, fairly regular messages from parents? On Instagram, we've had a few that definitely the second half of the year, and normally it's for parents that have younger kids so that they're worried that they're not concentrating and that they're not sitting in an activity for long enough.

So it's a lot of reassurance to parents that kids can get up and play. They don't have to sit for 20 minutes at an activity, short, sharp activities, and just giving them ideas of things to do. So recently we've just started our activity of the week that we're putting out every week on our Instagram account that.

Parents can do at home. So it's, I did see that. Yeah. It's to help everyone. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that because you're not, so when we're doing something, I think this is also a mindset shift for some of us. Building that brand awareness is, literally about establishing yourself in the industry. So it's about putting yourself out there, like you said, as that expert.

And the only way we can do that is to get in front of people without trying to constantly sell to them. Yeah. But about giving them knowledge and giving them, you know, empowering them, I guess. And that's exactly what you are doing. So whether it's through your dms on Facebook or Instagram, or whether it's through your weekly posts that you're doing, I love that because you.

Helping solve people's problems, but also showing them that you are the answer. You are the person to come to. You know, like you're giving them a little bit of the solution, but that parent is probably still gonna want more and you are gonna be the person that they turn to. That's so smart. So good. I really, really like that.

Thank you. So now dreaming really. , what do the next five or 10 years hold for you and your business? Oh, this is perfect timing. Susan and I were talking about this the day. So our dream would be to open another studio either down south in the Sutherland area or North Shore. So that would be our dream. And then to have a manager at each center and maybe us doing one or two days a week only cuz we love it, not because we have to.

So, yeah, the dream is to have the centers being able to be run without Susan or myself in them. And how, what do you think you need to do between now and then to get there? brand awareness. Definitely keep building on that and just getting the word out there, how important school readiness is. Some parents are like, oh, kids just need a play.

And I'm all four kids playing. But there is also things that kids need to learn before they start school, and it's just making parents aware and yeah, teaching parents along the way as well. . And with your business, what do you think needs to, you know, it's that old saying, what got us here won't get us there.

So obviously what we've done in the last 12 months has been amazing to get to you, to where you are. What do you think you need to change to get you. to those two centers and you working less? Definitely. It's more of the background stuff like the email, emailing and nurturing parents through emails, as you said, giving them little snippets of what we do throughout our sessions to then want them to come in the door, but also working on the tutoring with primary school kids and bringing on some more tutors.

So it's employing staff as well. So I think we need to put money into. To make more money and grow our business. Yeah. Cause we can't grow it with just the two of us. That's right. It's that one step forwards, two steps backwards. Did I say that right? ? Yes. So basically to grow you are going to need to change something and for you it would, it, it's going to be employing more stuff.

and that. Costs, obviously. So costs to bring on staff, whether it's, you know, setting up the employee contracts, doing the training, onboarding them, all that sort of stuff. And then obviously paying them. But that allows you to grow and offer more services, which means more revenue, which then covers all those costs of the staff.

And I think that's really important. Bringing on staff is something that a lot of people. Freak out about. I was scary. Yeah. What scares you when you talk about bringing staff on, not having kids to like kids that they can then tutor? So at the moment we're in limbo land because parents have said, yes, we want tutoring and we've got tutors on standby, but parents still haven't gotten back to us.

So it worries me that staff will come on and go, yes, yes, we'll work for you. And then not having. Kids for them to tutor, yeah. Is the main one for us. And mainly because they're doing the one-on-one tutoring at the moment. Also not filling the classes and then paying, having to pay the tutor and the class, not even covering the tutor's fees.

So it's all those things that are a little bit worrying, but we know that we have to take this. Step to then move forward and offer, like, as you said, offer more services, offer more spaces for kids to come in. More availabilities. Yeah, exactly. If you don't have those staff available for those extra classes, even though those classes aren't full, if those classes aren't available at all.

Then you can't possibly get anybody in there. So, yeah, I think you and I have spoken about this before at another point about sometimes you've gotta run a class or a workshop or a holiday program, something like that, and it's, you know, you might normally say six kids maximum, but you might only have two kids in there and you still run that class even though it isn't running at the profit that you.

because it gives the opportunity for obviously testimonials to get photos to put on your website and share on your social media, but word of mouth as well. Mm-hmm. , like those parents are will always, you know, if you're doing a great job, they'll always sing your praises and then it opens up the space for more students to come into.

Exactly. Yeah. It's the same with staffing. You've got to take those risks and. I think one of the other benefits of having a tutoring business when it comes to staffing is that you can pay them casually. So we don't have to, and this is a misconception that a lot of tutors have is or business owners have, is that they have to bring them on, they have to do holiday pay and maternity pay and all of this.

You don't have to do that. So you can employ your tutors as casual staff members? Yes. Which means they might be working three hours. One week and four hours a week. The next, you know, if a student's away or if a new one comes on and things like that. Obviously also, cancellation policies are huge. Once you know, I'm a bigger advocate.

You know this for cancellation policies anyway. Yeah. But once you have staff, that's a whole other story because you then, you know, if a parent cancels, not only are you losing. . But now either you've got to pay your staff member and you're losing more money. Or that staff member who was expecting that work is now out of Out of work.

Outta pocket. Yeah, outta work. So yeah, cancellation policies cannot rate them enough. We got ours done after you hammered us with them. cancellation policies and turns and conditions. Yes. And if you're listening and you do not have them, Please get them, , get them and if you do not know where to get them, go to my website and look up the tutoring template toolkit, cuz you can get them in there.

So I wanted to pivot a little bit and ask you a little bit about your time in the tutoring growth membership. Yep. What made you join? I, I know that we sort of chatted quite a bit on and off behind the scenes, but what made you eventually join or, or. Go to the start. What made you even look in the first place or or reach out?

Well, I was looking for someone to just help me business wise, cuz I've got the tutoring can do the programs for tutoring. But it's all those business things that like the terms and conditions, like the cancellation policy, all those things that you don't even think about when you're starting a tutoring business.

And so I think somebody actually recommended. You too. Me. I can't even remember now. It's that long ago. And I know we had our original chat and you gave some really great ideas and we were just waiting to get up and running a bit so that we could make the most out of the membership. And then once we were able to cover the fees of your membership and know that we, if we got some new students that would cover.

Those fees as well. We decided to join up, take the leap, and it's one of the best things I've done cuz you've put us in the right direction, you've given us all the tools that we need to make sure that everything in the business side of things is running smoothly so that we can do that growth when we're ready.

That's awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. And I think, you know, when I started my tutoring business, I was just like you. I had no business experience and I nearly bought a franchise, and last minute decided not to, but the reason that I nearly bought it was because I thought that I wanted, or that I needed that business.

Experience. Mm-hmm. , I wouldn't recommend buying a franchise for that. That's just my personal opinion, . But now, you know, I have a coach constantly, whether it's being part of a mastermind, whether it's working with a coach one-on-one, because I think there's always that person who is. You know, has been there and done it before and knows how to get you from where you are now to there, they can hold you accountable.

They know what mistakes you're probably gonna make and how to avoid them. And like you said, as tutors we come into this with, you know, top notch teaching skills. So whether you know where classroom teachers, teacher aids, training teacher. . We've got those skills already and most of us have spent loads of time and money developing those skills.

Mm-hmm. . Yep. But we have to make sure that we've got the business side of it as well. Otherwise, we end up so many pe I see it all the time. So many people end up running basically just a. Accidental non-for-profit side hustle. Exactly. Where they're just tutoring people and they're not making money. So if I was to say, you know, you did touch on a few things then, but if you could be really specific for me now, , and what are maybe two or three of the biggest things that you've learnt or got out of being a part of the tutoring growth membership?

So, Number one, you'll be happy with this. Know your finances. So yes, making sure you know , I'm so happy that that was your number one answer, , because, uh, before we started with you, I had no idea. I had no idea what we were like. I knew we were covering rent, that's all my worry was. But not knowing if we were making profit where we were spending our money on resources on other like zero.

expenses or that, but not knowing what our margins were. So learning to look at them each month and see where our growth is if we needed to up it a bit more. That was definitely a plus for us. And just all the templates you give, all the advice you give and the templates such as the terms and conditions and the cancellation policy, all those sort of things that you know you've gotta have.

But it's sort of like, oh, it's too hard basket at the moment. I could do it later. Like it was always put off. And then it's like, no, we've gotta. And you just make you accountable. Like we have our catch ups every month and you always check in to see what we're working on, what our goals are for the month, and then make sure we're hitting them, which is really good as well.

Yeah. Uh, like I said, I still work with a coach and do nearly everything that I've just said that you do with me because I know the value of it and I know that, you know. Like I said before, we always have to be doing something. We have to be moving in that direction towards our goals and our vision. But before that, we have to know what those goals and visions are.

And I think a lot of ladies in this industry have just gone, I just wanna start a business. I'm a great teacher and I know that I can make some good money on the side, but haven't thought beyond that. Mm-hmm. and so I. You know, creating that vision and then stepping that back into goals and like we did just recently, stepping that back into very actionable steps, helps to break it down and helps to make business simple and, you know, a bit more palatable for those people who aren't so into the business side of things.

But I am definitely very, very happy that your first answer was , understanding your numbers. So have you on that point ever been shocked by your numbers? Just out of curiosity, have you looked at them and ever been like, oh my gosh, this is amazing, or Oh wow, I really need to change this. Like just recently, cuz we did holiday programs again and we sold out.

Time ever, which was amazing. So when we saw how much we actually made on the holidays and it was gonna cover two to three months of rent. So we weren't stressing about these term one enrollments. That's exactly what we wanted. Cause the new term one was gonna be, yeah, it was gonna be hard. So that was really, really great to see that.

So definitely be happening every January holiday. So school readiness intensive, so bring it on. Which is great. And see if you weren't, if you didn't know how to, you know, go back and look at your numbers and assess all of that, you wouldn't have done that and you wouldn't have seen how much income you were bringing in just from that program.

So that's fantastic. Exactly. Yeah. That's so good. Really good. Um, people can't see my face right now, but I'm just so , what would you say to people who are sitting on the fence? , maybe they've got a tutoring business, but you know, they're cruising along pretty okay. So they don't really think they need any particular help, but maybe they're listening to this podcast.

Mm-hmm. , or maybe they've, you know, seen my socials and seen me Talking about the tutoring growth membership, what would you say to those people? , I would say just do it. It's, there's no negatives about it. You get so much out of it, even if it's just connecting with the other tutors. In the growth mindset, we all bounce off ideas.

So it's really good to have the group of ladies around you that are doing exactly the same thing. They could be stuck on the same thing you are stuck on, or somebody else could have, could give you ideas of how they got out of it. So it's not just your wisdom, which is amazing, but it's all the other ladies that are in there too, and it's just a nice group to.

Connections with So good. My last question, what, or when you were joining the tutoring growth membership, were you ever a little unsure of the fact that you were going to be in a membership with other people doing the same thing as you? No, not really. No. I was quite happy cuz I just thought, well, if I don't know the answer to something or I have a problem, then hopefully they've been there, they've done it.

They can give some advice, which very good. Because I know I, yeah, I know I turn to other people that aren't in the growth membership as well, and they're always great advice from them. And I just know that these business women are in the same boat as me doing very similar things, so it's great to have them on board.

Yeah, I love it. I think, I love that the community inside is so supportive. In some industries, you just wouldn't get a group of people together who all had the same businesses, but because there is such an abundance of, unfortunately, but there is an abundance of students who need our support. And there are literally so many places that you could be to start up a tutoring business.

And there are so many different niches. Like even if you and I were both in the same street, we could both have tutoring businesses or educational businesses that focused on different. Types of children or types of teaching or types of, you know, subjects or ages. There is just such a massive opportunity for that.

So I think that plus just, I think teachers just like, To help each other out, you know, there, I mean there are definitely, and we all know there are definitely those teachers at the schools who have their , have their ideas and they hold them close to their chest and they don't like sharing. This is not one of those communities though.

The ladies inside the tutoring, growth, membership all love to help each other. You know, like everyone, me. Gives an answer when there's a question in the group. You know, everyone's happy to share what they've done already and I love that it is very much collaboration over competition. So, yeah, and I'm really glad that you're here to be a part of that.

So good. Aw, thank you. So thank you so much for coming on today, being our first ever guest on Yay Business. I couldn't think of. Well, thank you. Thank you for asking me. I really appreciate it. I was shocked when you asked me to be honest. Oh, well, you know, when you have star pupils, you have to everyone what amazing things they're doing.

But if you are keen to follow Emma along on her business journey and see what she's doing, I will put the links in the show notes, but it's at Set for School on Instagram and Facebook. So hop on over. Give her a follow. She an amazing person. Say hi. Say hi. And if you want to join the tutoring, growth membership, I'll also put some links in the show notes.

Or you can just head over and say hi to me, on Instagram or Facebook, cuz I would love to hear from you. Thank you so much for your time today. Emma was really great to have you here. Thank you, lovely chatting. Bye. If you enjoyed this episode today, I would absolutely love for you to leave a review. It only takes a minute, and if you haven't yet subscribed, make sure you do to ensure that you never miss an.

Finally, if you want to know more about what we do, head over to the website, kirstygibbs.com or check out the link in the show notes below. Thanks for listening. It's so great to have you here.