Episode Transcription

Okay, this is episode 63 of the Classroom to Business podcast. Stop letting your business run you. It's time to get organized.

I'm just going to record. Welcome to another episode of Classroom to Business. Today I'm going to be talking on a topic that I'm really passionate about.

I mean, most of what I talk about I'm passionate about, right? So this is an extra exciting topic for me because I feel like when people step into this, they see insane changes.

They see massive growth. They feel completely transformed. And I wanted to talk about this today because I have seen this in probably three or four of the current members inside of Profit2Pathway.

I've seen this change. I've seen this shift. And yes, we have been doing a lot of work on this and we've been focusing on this.

And so I thought I wanted to take some of that awesome juiciness and share what we've been doing inside of Profit2Pathway with you guys here so that you can benefit from it as well.

And so that you can maybe, you know, start to feel the sorts of things that they're feeling and have the changes that they're having and really see the impact.

So basically, what I come across is so many people, and I know I talk about this all the time, people start their tutoring businesses for freedom.

However, However, Often, they find their businesses running themselves. So they start their businesses because they want more control over their time.

They want more freedom and flexibility. They want to be able to do more of what they want through the days.

They don't want to have to wake up and go to a job. They want to have more freedom around how they're teaching and what they're teaching.

And most of the time, they want to be earning the same amount as they were in the classroom, if not more.

That is a problem for most tutoring business owners. They have got themselves to a point where they are working more than they did in the classroom.

They have less flexibility and freedom. And they're not earning what they want to be earning or what they thought they'll be earning.

And they're kind of getting to a point where they're like, is this really what I signed up for? And they're either going back to the classroom and giving up or they're just sitting in this little world of...

I've closed my eyes, put my blinkers on, bury my head in the sand, and things will just get better.

I want to take you out of that. And if you're not in that yet, I say the word yet, because this will come at a stage in your business journey if you don't do something about it.

So if you're in it, we're going to work through taking you out of it. And if you're not there yet, listen up so that you can avoid it.

Because, you know, constantly replying to messages, juggling admin, wondering, you know, how many students I've got next term, and am I going to be able to pay the bills?

That's not what I want for you in business. So if you feel like your business is running you instead of the other way around, you're not stuck there.

You don't have to stay there. And this is a cycle that we can get out of. So today I'm going to talk about why those things happen and what you can do about it, the sorts of shifts that you can start making.

you. Reclaim your time, your energy, because that's a big one, especially for those of us who are parents, and your vision.

When you started your business, you had a dream. You had a goal of where you wanted to get it to.

And I love that so many of you have got really big visions and dreams and goals. I hate, and I don't use that word lightly, I don't even let my kids use the word hate.

When I was a little kid, it used to be called the H word because it was like a swear word.

And I still agree, but I hate when people's dreams just fall to the wayside because it got too hard and they didn't know how to get to that next stage or they didn't know how to break out of the cycle.

I want you to have your energy, your vision back, and I'm going to share with you an opportunity for how we can work together if you're in Sydney or you're going to be around Sydney next month in September.

I'm going to share a way that we can actually come together. Let's do more of this work on your mindset, but also on your business to get you further.

So keep your, you know, keep your ears open for that. But first, why do you feel stuck? Okay, so this overwhelm is usually a result of a few things happening for us in our businesses.

So we've built our tutoring business, we've built our business around tutoring. So we know that's what we're good at.

We know that, you know, people will pay us for that. And so that's what we focus on. We put all of our time and energy into that.

We spend a lot of time and money doing courses. We spend a lot of time and money building resources, creating resources and collecting resources and organizing resources and planning lessons and all of those sorts of things.

That's where it all goes. We are still. In the employee mindset, we're still working very much in our businesses.

Now, when you start, it's like that. Okay, you do, you wear all of the hats when you start your business.

But you need to get to a point where you can step out. And that doesn't have to be in five years time, that can literally be in six months time, 12 months time from when you start, you can be looking at, okay, what sorts of things are happening in my business that I can outsource.

So don't think that it has to be when you're earning six figures, or when you've got, you know, so many students that you can then start getting help in your business or creating systems, you want to be actually doing that sooner rather than later.

So going back, when you build your business around tutoring, it means that you're not spending the time to build systems.

So as you grow, you're doing everything. You're obviously doing the tutoring, doing the planning, doing it. Communicating with parents, taking the inquiry calls, following up the leads, invoicing families, chasing up payments, following up cancellations.

By the way, those last two, if you work with me, you will not be doing those anymore because they just flat out shouldn't be happening.

You know, doing the marketing, you're trying to get people to hear about you. You're trying to maybe build websites.

You're the person on social media. You're trying to create content. You're doing graphics in Canva. You're looking for premises to lease.

You're learning all of this legal stuff about, you know, insurance and everything. That's all on you to start with.

And you have to understand that you can't scale. You can't grow if you're doing all of those things. So if you don't have support and if you don't have systems, you cannot get out of that employee mindset.

You can't get out of that. I guess it's almost like a rat race. It's the side hustle cycle. That's what I call it.

That's The other thing that happens to people if they've got ideas, and I know what this is like. We have shiny object syndrome.

I want to do this. I want to do this. I want to do this. I've got this great idea.

And we think that by having more services, more offers, it's going to get more students in for us. It's going to make us more money.

It's going to make our businesses more successful. That's not necessarily the case. If you're doing too many things, you spread yourself too thinly.

You need to focus in. And I've talked about this before. You need to know your niche, know your superpower, and nail that.

Do not try and conquer the whole world if you haven't even sorted out your own area, your own backyard.

That's where you should be starting. That's where you should be focusing. Don't branch out into all sorts of, you know, other services.

Maybe we're going to do some STEM classes and some maths groups and some homework clubs. If you have positioned yourself as a literacy expert and you have.

I've not yet nailed that. Focus on your one thing. You've got all of these great ideas. Hone them in, park them for now.

Sorry, park them all for now and hone in on the one that you're working with first. On that note, though, maybe you've got these great ideas that you think, okay, yep, I want to focus on.

But now I don't know how to actually make them happen. So this is one of the other reasons why people feel stuck is they don't have a clear plan.

Or how to prioritize or what to prioritize out of all of their ideas. And then how to implement it.

And the workshop that I'm running in Sydney on the 24th. Oh, hang on. Let just check that before I tell you the wrong date.

Oh, that would be horrible. 24th of September is going to show you exactly this. I will be sitting there personally with you, listening to your ideas.

Helping you figure out which one to hone in on and then what sorts of systems and plans we put in place so that we can implement them.

So they actually happen. So they're no longer just the thing, you know, flopping around in your head that you're actually going to make these into a reality and make them successful.

The other reason why we usually get overwhelmed is because our days are filled with back-to-back sessions, with emails. Like I said before, chasing invoices, constant decision-making, and we don't have time left to think.

We have not got that CEO time where we are working on our businesses. We're doing a lot. We're very busy, but we're not always focusing on the right things.

We're not always focusing on the things that are going to make our businesses move forward. And by move forward, I mean increase our profits.

By the way, that is not revenue. Revenue is the whole amount. Then you need to take your expenses out.

Profits is what's left over, and that is the important number. You could be earning $1 million a year, but if your expenses are $999,000 and your profit's only $1, you know, $100, whatever my maths just was then, you know what I'm trying to say, then it's not that much of a, you know, a thing to write home about.

Your profits are what matters. So that's what you need to be reviewing regularly, and that's what helps drive the decisions in your business.

Also, your time, right? A lot of us have left the classroom because we're burning out, because we were working so many hours.

So that when we come to our businesses, we're trying to create more freedom and flexibility around our time, to be with our families more, to do more of the things we enjoy.

If that is not happening in your business, then you need to do something about it. So many you -tutors are running their businesses almost, you know, winging it, okay, and they're reacting to everything.

They're often saying yes to everything and everyone, especially students, and then they're wondering why they feel exhausted and still stuck.

So one of the key things that we have to change here is the idea of looking at working in your business versus on your business.

And that's where we get this idea of employee, which is in your business, versus CEO on your business. Now, I use the term CEO.

You can come up with something else if that doesn't sit right for you, but you know what I mean.

I mean you're not doing the fiddly little things in your business that you can pay somebody else to do.

You're doing the big decision-making things. So I wanted to break those down now just to make them really clear.

Most tutoring business owners are stuck working in their business as the employee. So they're doing the tutoring. They're doing the resource preparation.

They're doing the planning of the lessons. They are, you know, sending feedback to parents. They're organizing schedules. They're responding to inquiries.

They're rewriting the same emails over and over. They're doing all of the admin, the invoicing. Those things are in your business tasks.

This is not to say that they're not all important, but this is to show you the difference. Okay. Working on your business looks like mapping out your offers and your services.

Like really mapping them out, looking at them and going, okay, we've been doing these literacy one-on-ones for the past three years.

This is what they're making us. These are our profit margins. What about if we did some semi-privates and we put two to three kids in a group?

What would that look like? How would that change our profit margins? Oh my goodness, that like doubles the amount that we're making.

We need to make this happen. But I don't know how. So now we're working on how do we implement that?

How do we market that? How do we bring that in so that we're not losing students? That is all a huge part of mapping out your offer.

Okay, and that's just one little example. But it only happens when you create space and time as the CEO of your business to work on it.

Other things that are part of working on your business, reviewing your pricing, and this should be happening every 12 months.

It's not something that you just spend one night, you know, oh my gosh, you know, just thinking about. You actually set aside a time to do this.

And again, you do it with, you know, it has to be an informed decision. Review what you've been doing for the last 12 months.

Look what... What else is happening in your market or your industry? Look at your wait list. Look at how long families are staying with you, your retention rates.

All of those sorts of things need to be considered when you're reviewing your pricing. Planning ahead for term changes.

So, you know, an example of this is sitting down and looking at your calendar for the next 12 months or even six months and saying, what's happening for our families in the next six months?

At what point would they potentially be looking for us? Okay, obviously around parent-teacher interviews and report cards, NAP plan, all those sorts of times.

They are when parents might be more proactive in looking for you. So maybe you decide, okay, I'm going to be doing some extra marketing then.

And these are the campaigns we're working on. And this is what it's going to look like. Again, you've got to create CEO time and space to actually do this and work on it.

You don't just sit down one night and have a, you know, a... A winging it idea and sit down and decide, okay, tomorrow I'm going to start doing social media posts.

I'm going to put some ads on because that's what happens. So many people do that. They just decide one day I need to make more money.

So I'm just going to offer this now, but there's no plan behind it. There's no strategy behind it. And then they wonder why it fails.

They wonder why it doesn't work. They wonder why people aren't signing up. You've got to actually spend time on this, guys.

Delegating or automating tasks. So you should be looking at what you do. And this is a big part of what we do in our TutorBoost workshop that I'm running in Sydney.

We look at everything you're doing. And I will be brutally honest with you because everything I do is to support you.

But I will tell you that is a waste of your time. You don't need to be doing that. Okay, you've got another hour back every day for the rest of your life because you don't need to do that anymore.

Or that's a task that we could automate. So instead of it taking you 40 minutes, it's something that's on repeat and it's saving you 40 minutes every week.

Delegating, deleting, automating tasks are something that you should be reviewing and they're definitely something that you should be considering in your business if you aren't already.

And thinking like a CEO, like this is probably, and I wish I could share some of these and maybe I will, but the shifts in the mindset of probably these three to four ladies that I've particularly got in my mind right now inside of the Profit Pathway who have changed something as just a little flick, a little switch has flicked in their minds and they're seeing themselves as the CEO now.

They're making decisions about them. Their business that aren't reactive, they're planning ahead, they're making decisions that are sometimes really scary, or, you know, putting them really out of their comfort zone.

But they are planning ahead, they're looking at the bigger picture, they aren't afraid anymore, they're not playing small, they're not sitting there going, oh, it's okay, I've only got this number of students, it's okay that I'm not paying myself yet.

Or it's okay that I'm only paying myself, you know, a couple of hundred dollars, you know, a week. I just had, you know, one example now of one of these clients who wasn't paying herself at all.

And two months ago, her three-month goal was to pay herself $300 a week. We just jumped on our momentum call yesterday or the day before, and she's now paying herself $500 a week.

Because of the things that she's changed in her business, you know, I mean, there are so many things, but in two months, that's the turn.

And a big part of it was her making time to look at her business and work on her business.

She didn't even know that she could actually pay herself that much because she hadn't probably looked at her finances.

And, you know, if she's listening, you know who you are. And I say all of this because I'm so proud of you.

But that's just a little example of what can happen in two months. All right. So when you look at things with a different mindset, when you step into the actions that are scary, when you get out of your comfort zone, because that is a place that so many people get stuck, they just get complacent and content, and then you will not grow.

Step out of all that. And that's when you see the difference. Because I'm quite sure that you didn't leave the classroom to be, you know, glued to your laptop and tutoring and first thing in the mornings and the evenings and on the weekends, you know, the goal wasn't to just be busy.

The goal was. To make a difference and create something that gives you more time, more financial freedom, and more flexibility.

And it has to work for you, okay? There's no right or wrong way to run a tutoring business. There are so many different ways.

And again, that's the beauty of working with other people who, you know, like-minded people who are in the industry because you will learn from others and you will get ideas and inspiration.

I wanted to touch on some time wasters, some things that are costing you in your growth. These are like kind of sneaky because they seem productive, but they can actually keep you really small.

And I'm going to use the word busy because it's like a, in this sense, we often think that busy is going to lead to success, but it's not necessarily.

So it's keeping you busy. It's not allowing you to grow. So some examples, rewriting the same onboarding email over and over again.

Even the fact if you're copying and pasting a template, but then you're going in and like changing a few things here and there.

If you haven't heard about my tutoring software that is literally just launching now, Hank, he is so cool. He's basically your business bestie.

He is going to be doing all of this for you. If you're interested, I will put the link here in the bio.

You can check it out, join the wait list, and then you will get all the updates as to when it's all, all the stages that have been released.

So super excited about that, guys. Like, honestly, it is a game changer for anyone who has a tutoring business.

I just had a call with a lady a couple of days ago and she was nearly in tears when we went through all of the things that we'll do for her and her business.

She's like, oh, my gosh, I spent hours doing this. I cannot believe that this is a thing and it is different to the other softwares out there.

Well, it's a lot more focused on automations and the saving you time. So it's not about a big program of learning new things.

It's like, here, give this to Hank and Hank will do it for you. So I'll put a link in the show notes for that if you're interested in checking it out.

But if you shouldn't be rewriting the same onboarding emails, you shouldn't be writing the same emails at any point, you know.

So manually booking consults or rescheduling clients. Again, you're wasting time if you're doing these things. They might seem productive, but they are not.

They're just the sneaky, busy things. Letting parents message you at all hours with no boundaries. That is a big no-no.

That is not acting like a CEO at all. Put your boundaries in place. Respect yourself and your family's time more.

And other families will respect that about you. Doing everything yourself because it feels faster than setting up a system or bringing someone else on board.

I can say that it took me a while to actually get good at that. So I definitely struggled with letting go of some things and it wasn't necessarily because I thought I was better than somebody else.

It's because I felt like I don't have the time to show somebody or I don't have the time to learn this system.

However, now I've realized how beneficial it is to have support through VAs or admin or bookkeepers, whoever it is that you bring on board and have systems that I will invest quite chunky amounts of time to work with these people so that they know exactly how I want things to be done, what I want to be done, what that outcome looks like.

And also with my systems, same sorts of thing. Like at the moment, I'm spending quite a bit of time on learning these new automations with ChatGPT and Zapier and the likes to set up automations, which is going to

Yes, right now it's a bit of a headache and it feels like I'm going around a circle sometimes because I'm teaching it to myself and it's taking a while, but I actually enjoy it, weirdly, and I know that once it's done, I can replicate that in so many different ways in my business to save me so much time.

And the other one is jumping between admin and marketing and lessons, lesson planning and actually running of sessions with no structure.

Okay, we should be looking at our calendar, we should be planning things out, we should have our non-negotiables in there and each week, you know, planning forward to see where am I spending my time.

Because I guess if you think about it, when all of your energy goes into running all of these day-to-day things, it means you've got no time or capacity for the strategy, for the really big helicopter.

And like I've said, that's where the growth happens. So why? Why do you need to step back? I feel like I've kind of said this, but just in case you missed it, if you haven't got CEO time in your business, you don't have space to grow it.

You are basically in the side hustle cycle. You're being reactive and you are constantly, you know, you're just putting out fires and you're acting as the employee.

You need to introduce the concept of CEO time. You have to block this time in. This has to be protected space in your week for you to work on your business, not in it.

I would suggest starting with one to two hours a week and I would make it a minimum of one hour.

If you're working with me, you know that I expect you to be doing this two hours a week. I've actually just got clients now who have got to 10 hours a week.

So two hours of their day, every day is working on their business. And you know what? This is actually the really, like, yes, you might still really enjoy teaching and the tutoring part of your business.

And that's okay. You don't have to step away from that completely. But this sort of stuff, when you actually get into it properly and you learn how to do it and you learn what it really truly is, and it's not all of the admin, it's not all of the bookkeeping and the invoicing and that stuff, the CEO time is the fun stuff.

Like, it is bringing everything together. It is dreaming. It is ideas. It is creation. And so I think this is why some of my clients have upped it from one to two hours a week, one to two hours a day.

Oh my gosh, this is good stuff. So I encourage you to do that for yourself. You don't need a fancy office.

You don't need a full-time staff to be your CEO. You just need to stop doing everything on the fly.

Stop being reactive. You need to get intentional about your time and you need to choose where your energy goes.

If you don't make time for your CEO time, you will always feel like you are chasing your tail. And I know that when I slip back into that in my business, when I get so busy in my business and I haven't set back to work on it, that's exactly how I feel.

And sometimes I will set aside a good day or half a day just to work on my business because it gets me focused again.

It gets me re-energized. Re-energized? Is that a word? And it gets me remembering why I do what I do and where I'm trying to get.

And I don't think enough of us do that. So I wanted to give you a little invite now because I said that I would.

But this, everything that I've mentioned now are things that you can put into place. You can go and do these things, all right?

But if you would like to work with me to do these things, then I've created an in-person workshop that is happening in Sydney on Tuesday the 24th.

Is it Tuesday? Hang on. Hang on a minute. Wednesday the 24th, didn't think that sounded right. Wednesday the 24th of September.

And it is the day before the Australian Tutoring Association's annual conference. So if you're coming to that, if you're already in Sydney, come and work with me for a day beforehand.

I would love to meet you. I'd love to work with you. And if you're not coming to the conference, then come to this at least so we can work together and we can play.

Okay. Take all of your big ideas, figure them out. What do we need to focus on? Hone in on that.

Look at your time. Look at where you're spending your time. What can we delete? What can we delegate? What can we automate?

Create some plan of attacks so that you can take those ideas, create some more time for yourself, implement those ideas, and then actually see that growth happen.

So who's this workshop for? It's for anyone who's basically ready to start winging it. And I think that's most of us.

I mean, I know that I was winging it with my tutoring business for a very long time, and I wasted a lot of money and time doing that.

So I don't want that for you. It's for those of you who are sick of feeling maybe a bit overwhelmed and scattered and behind, thinking, you know, I've seen somebody else get to this point.

I don't know how to get to there. Or they've been doing it for less time than me, and they're already ahead of me.

You know, if you're starting to feel those sorts of fears and doubts, maybe I should just... Let's go back to the classroom.

I don't want you in that space. But this is also for people who are confident and know that their business is amazing, but don't quite know how to get it to that next stage.

So we ran one of these in Brisbane a few months ago, and it was extremely successful. And we got so much out of it.

And because it is a small group, so there are limited spots, I must say that, you will get lots of support from me.

But also you get to meet other people in our same industry who have either gone through what you're going through or are going through what you're going through.

So there's lots of brainstorming, sharing ideas, and really awesome collaborations, and even some really beautiful friendships that are made as well.

So it doesn't matter where you are in terms of what stage of business you are at, a lot of people are going to have a similar challenge of, I don't know what to do next.

I don't know how to make more income. I don't know how to improve. This idea of X, Y, and Z.

I don't know what I don't know. I need some help. It's for you, okay? Especially if you're not making those profits or you're finding yourself tied up in your business and you want to automate and simplify some things.

So what we'll do together is we'll audit your current systems or maybe lack of, and that's okay. There's no judgment, right?

Identify what's wasting your time, spot the areas where automation could give you some hours back, refine your processes so that they match your goals, and create space for you to plan your next move strategically.

And then hopefully if we get through that, because that is a huge amount, then hopefully we will be able to map out what you need to do next.

It is not a lecture-style event, so I won't be staying up front talking to you. We will be all together working.

It's hands-on, small group. So highly practical. Like I said, you'll get lots of one-on-one support from me throughout the day and you'll leave with clarity, you'll leave with action steps, you'll leave with new friends, but you'll leave with breathing room as well and, you know, some creative juices flowing to know how you can do what you've been wanting to do.

Like I said, if you're already coming to the ATA conference on the 25th, you may as well come down and join me for a day earlier.

What have you got to lose, right? Um, and we'll get your business sorted. We will streamline some things, systemize some things and make it all nice and pretty.

Now, pricing wise, wanted to share this because we do have an early bird offer. So prices are $5.97 for the day.

Um, but if you join with the early bird offer before the 31st of August, then you will only pay $4.97.

So that's a whole day working together. And to give you an idea. Yeah. A one-hour coaching call with me is $4.97, so we're going to have a whole day together, plus you will be working with others as well that you will learn from and bounce ideas from and connect with.

All right, so just to recap on everything that I've said, and I kind of chatted for a bit longer than normal today, but you do not need to let your business run you anymore.

You don't need to stay stuck. You don't need to stay in this side hustle cycle. Get out of your business.

Stop working in it. Start working on it. Take some action. Create some time and space for this. If you want to work with me, come along to Sydney.

I will put the links in the bio. Love to work with you, and if you've got any questions about anything that I spoke on in today's episode, please send me a DM.

I would love to hear from you. Otherwise, I hope to see you in Sydney, and please start looking at yourself as the CEO, not just the employee.