Episode Transcription

32: You Need to Outsource Your Website

Welcome back to a brand new episode of Classroom to Business and the first episode of 2024. As I am recording this, we are still in holiday mode. A lot of people, there are still school holidays happening. My girls are currently downstairs being entertained by my mom. Thank you, Nanny. There's been a lot of Wordle being played.

Over the last few days, it's a brand new game that I bought my husband for Christmas, because I thought it would be really fun. I'm not sure if there's anybody else out there who does that, but see something that they would really like knowing that if it needs to be bought, then they need to be the one to buy it, but you need an excuse to buy it, right?

So what better reason than Christmas presents? Um, anyway, my husband does enjoy it, but. My kids and I absolutely love it. Hopefully you've had a wonderful Christmas break. Hopefully you have enjoyed some downtime. You have spent some quality time with friends or family and you're coming back into the brand new year.

Refreshed, recharged, ready to go, excited for what this year brings. Um, I know that I am, I'm working on some really cool things this year, especially with AI. So if you're interested, make sure you stay tuned. Um, and we've got some other things coming up as well, especially inside of the tutoring growth membership.

Lots of amazing guests have already been lined up for this year for our, um, live masterclasses that, that we run every month. So if you're interested in that, make sure you get in touch as well. Now, today's episode, I want to talk about the, I guess it's like the seven month freak out. So this happens all the time. 

Um, and what happens is people come along and, and they, they start their tutoring business and, um, they get all excited. They've. You know, maybe they have, or they haven't worked with me to start their tutoring business. So really there, there is no, um, uh, precedent here. No, that's probably not the word I'm looking for, but there's no real reason here for, um, who this is happening to. 

Oh, okay. Going back. 

So today I want to talk about something that I'm calling. Seven months, freak out. Okay. So I can guarantee, I can almost guarantee, nothing's a guarantee, can almost guarantee that this will happen to you if you are in the first seven ish months of your business, or this will have happened to you and what it is.

Is basically people start their businesses, they get all excited. They've got these ideas and they turn them into something more. They, um, maybe they've registered their ABN, they've got their business name. They might even have a website. So they think they're good to go. And I think fantastic, you know.

The money's just going to come in. It doesn't work like that, unfortunately. And I mean, this is where, I guess this is the first make or break for a lot of businesses. People put in that first initial bit of work and if they don't see results immediately, they give up. Hopefully if you're listening to this, you've been through that situation and you haven't given up.

You're in this situation and I'm here to tell you, don't give up. Or this situation hasn't come to you yet. So I'm here warning you and encouraging you don't give up those first, I'm saying seven, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but it's an average of seven. Those first seven months. Are slow. And I am here telling you this because I don't want you to give up and I don't want you to have these false, unrealistic expectations of what's going to happen when you start your tutoring business.

It's not something that happens overnight. Sure. Starting it, we can definitely get it up and running and put all of our systems in place pretty quickly, have all of the foundations set, all of the policies. That stuff is fine. The making money side of your business takes time. And this is something that I want you to be so aware of because I do not want you to give up because you think you're failing because you're not making a ton of money in those first seven ish months. 

So often, like I said, people will register their business name, they'll get their ABN. Um, they'll potentially start a Facebook group or Facebook page. They might jump on to Instagram as well. And some people will even start a website. They're sort of the basics that people cover. The problem is From that, they jump straight into focusing on money. 

And unfortunately they haven't done enough work. I guess I'm going to say the word work on the things that they should be focusing on in these early days. And they're putting unrealistic expectations. on people even knowing that they exist and wanting to work with them. Now, that sounds a little bit harsh because there are people who want to work with you.

There are loads of people who want to send their children to you to get your support. But to begin with, they don't even know you exist. Secondly, They don't know how good you are. Thirdly, they don't know if they can trust you. And it's not that they're sitting there thinking, Oh, I don't know if I can trust this person. 

But as a parent, and if you're a parent listening to this, you will know. We're trying to find out if we're sending our child to the right thing. Is this the right person? Is this the right program? Are they actually, do they actually care? Are they actually going to make a difference? You are, you, it is your job to show parents that.

It is your job to sell yourself. And this is where selling isn't sleazy. Selling is showing the difference that you make, the impact that you can make for those families. So what we need to do. Yes, register your business name. Yes. Get your ABN. Yes. Your website, your socials, all of those sorts of things.

But we also need to make sure we're doing our due diligence, our work, our solid foundations with understanding our target audience, who is it that we are wanting to work with? What do they need? What are their problems, their challenges, their pain points? And remember, we need to think about the child and the parent. 

Then also what's the transformation promise that you have? So what are you saying that your services will help them with? And it's, in my opinion, it's not just good enough to say, I will help you increase your grades. Go deeper than that. Everyone is going to say something like that. You want to stand out, be more specific. 

You also Should be working on your branding. And this isn't just the pretty colors and the fonts and the logo. It's the whole tone of the voice of your, and the personality of your business. There's a lot of work that you need to do to have all of that so that as soon as somebody reads your social media post or goes to a website or picks up one of your flyers or sees an ad that you've put in a kid's magazine, it stands out straight away to be you, your business, your branding, but it always sounds the same.

We don't want to go from something that's, you know, really casual and fun and bubbly to all of a sudden, super, you know, professional and a little bit university ish, like for lack of better words, clearly. Your branding needs to sound the same across the board all the time. So work needs to be done on that. 

Your onboarding process, you want to nail this. Your onboarding process is that whole process from when you first have your inquiry call, All the way through to when they are an enrolled student and you've got them booked in for that very first day. And then what happens after that? You don't just enroll them and forget about them.

We should have a really high retention rate in a tutoring business. And that whole onboarding process is super important to maintain that. It's part of our A plus. Um. Uh, experience inside of our framework that we do inside of our tutoring group membership. But for you now, what I want you to think about is how can you make that onboarding process as simple as possible, as effective as possible with amazing customer service so that they are going to tell their friends. 

All of these things are the types of areas to be working on before you even think about how many kids you've got coming in the door or trying to get more kids. This stuff actually helps you to get more students. This is where, if you focus time and energy on these things, these evolve into your business, into your marketing, into your messaging, which helps to build the awareness.

That you exist, that you are amazing, that you make a difference and that you are trustworthy. If you're not doing these things, think about it. You're coming into a very well established industry. You may be the best teacher in the world, the best tutor in the world, but if people don't know you exist, how the heck are they going to come to you? 

Just because you're good at your services doesn't mean you will have a successful business. Just because you're good at your services doesn't mean people are going to come to you. You have to spend the time in the beginning doing all of this hard work to build really solid foundations. So that you can get that awareness and build that trust, so then people will know about you and will come to you. 

So if you're in the first seven months of your business and you're feeling like you don't have any students, maybe you've only got five students, maybe one, maybe none. And you thought by now you'd have 10 or 20, or maybe you thought you'd had five and you've only got one. Don't freak out. Well, actually, maybe do freak out.

Maybe that might ensure that right now you do everything you can to make this work, as opposed to throwing your hands up in the air and saying, Oh, this is too hard. I can't do this. There are too many tutoring businesses. I can't compete with the uni students and coming up with all of the other excuses under the sun. 

If that's your mindset right now, you have to make a choice. That mindset take you down. So you have a choice to keep that mindset and get dragged down. Think that you're wasting your time and give up or no, this is meant to be challenging. This is not meant to be easy. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

All right. And that's. Not my saying, but it's a true one. Yes, it is going to be very quiet during this early setup stage of your business. But it is totally normal and that is totally normal in every industry. But in our industry, it is definitely 100 percent going to be slow. Now I shouldn't have said 100 percent because like I said before, nothing's a guarantee.

But from all of the experience that I've had working with ladies, it is a slower. Part of your business at a slower stage in your journey. And this is why it's so important to not focus on getting students, but focus on what will get you students. Don't be up in your head and overwhelmed about I've got to make this much money and I've got to pull in these many kids.

Go and actually take the action, do the things, spend the time on the things that I mentioned. Branding, understanding your target audience, understanding how to talk to them in your messaging. So on your website, in your social media, in everything that you put out there, what are you saying? How are you speaking to them that's going to get them to trust you and want to work with you?

Send their child to you. Nailing your onboarding process, making sure you've got A plus customer service. All of these things should be the areas that you focus on now. These are the things that will help you to go beyond the seven month freak out. I want to finish with a couple of examples of the seven month freak outs.

So I think it might've been, uh, last year dealing, um, or having a. Working with one of the ladies inside of the tutoring growth membership, and she had just started her tutoring business. Um, and I think the conversations along these lines, and I was saying to her, yes, it's going to be slow. These first few months are slow.

Nobody even knows you exist. She's like, but I've got a Facebook page and I'm posting on there. Okay. Who's on your Facebook page? Oh, she sort of stopped and had to think about it. It's really mainly her friends and family on her Facebook page. So that's not really doing much, but she's got a website. Okay, great.

Have you done any work on SEO on your website? No. Have you done any blogs on your website to help your SEO? No. Have you been sharing your website? You know, have you been putting it out there and telling people that your website's out there and go and check it out? No. Right. So the first thing is you're freaking out and rightly so, because right now you're not doing anything to help your business.

You're not doing anything to help your customers be aware of you even existing and the amazing services that you offer and the impact that you can make. So please remember not to skip that stage. Now, this next story is one that I probably have a thousand versions of, but it's basically working with ladies who have just started their tutoring businesses.

They've got goals. Fantastic. I love, I love goals. I love, uh, I mean. That we whole other tangent and podcast episode, but goals are good because it gives you direction to then be able to work back on what actions you need to be taking, what things you need to do. So she's got her goals. They're great.

They're challenging. They're those big, scary goals that people think, Oh gee, she's a little bit crazy as if that's going to happen. They're the sorts of goals that we like. So she's got these goals and one month, no students, two months, she's got one student, three months, she's got three students, but she's freaking out because in her head, her goal was to have 15 students.

After three months. Now, I did just say, it's good to have those big, scary, freak out goals, but you also have to be realistic. Okay. And if you get to three months and you don't have your 15 students, what should we do, should we give up and say, this is too hard, I didn't get my 15 students. No way. We are taking the fact that we've got three students and we're. 

Growing with that. We're going back. We're building our awareness. We're focusing our attention where it needs to be. And we're continuing to tell people that we exist. She got to four months, five months, six months, seven months. By the time she got to seven months, seven months, all of her classes were booked.

Now, I know that when I say that, that's going to look different for everyone, but that was her goal. So I think for her, her goal was three classes over, you know, three days. And I think it might've worked out to 25 students or something like that. So that's just one example. But my point is everybody gets to this seven month or some point between probably about three to nine months.

And they absolutely freak out because they haven't got the number of students and it often comes back to a financial thing. And I get that. We've got bills to pay, you know, we need to buy groceries, but keep at it. This, right now, is not money making time. This is building your house kind of time. This is laying those foundations time.

This is not where we are trying to make a lot of money. That will come. But we have to get this initial stuff right first. Okay. Hopefully. If you are in that seven month freak out period, or you're a little bit ahead or a little bit behind, like I said, it's sometimes it can be nine months, sometimes it can be three months, but if you're in that first year and you are freaking out, don't give up. 

Take some time to figure out what you're doing, what you need to be doing more of, what you need to be doing less of, and then focus on those things. If you've been through this already, then let me know because I love hearing where people have gone beyond that stage of, Oh my gosh, what have I done? I should have stayed in the classroom.

I love hearing from you. So please let me know. Send me an email, send me a DM. And if you haven't gotten to that point yet, then know that there's a good chance that this is coming. So you are aware of it. You are prepared for it. And if you're in your first year of business, spend this time now focusing on those things that I mentioned, branding, understanding your target audience, your messaging, your onboarding process, getting some systems and automations in place, use this time wisely.

Okay, because when you have got all of that It helps you to attract your students and grow your revenue and enable you to make more impact. Now, if all of that sounds like what you're after, then the tutoring growth membership, I am opening the doors for a very short period of time at the end of January.

So I will put a link to that in the show notes, but also I am running a three part free training, which I'm super excited about, um, starting on the 23rd of January. And I'm going to be going into a little bit more of the framework that I use with the ladies that I work with to help them build out some of these areas of their businesses so that they are able to attract more families.

And make more money, which in turn gives them that freedom, that financial freedom, while still having the flexibility of having your own business. So if that's something that you're interested in, I will pop the link in the show notes to that as well, that this has been helpful for you. I really hope that you haven't found it overwhelming.

If you haven't started your business yet and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, this is going to take me so long to make money, but I want to be real with you. I want to be honest and upfront, it takes time to actually get your business to a point where you are making the money that you are hoping to make, where you're making those six figures, where you're, you know, replacing your teacher income.

It is totally possible. I would not tell you it was if it wasn't, but it's not the kind of thing that happens in, you know, overnight. It's. It doesn't, it just doesn't happen. Um, so be realistic, focus on the right things. And if you would like some support with all of those things, make sure you click on the links in the show notes, get in touch, let me know what you, um, what stage you're at and let's see if I can help you to move forward in your business with that growth.