How Should I Advertise My Tutor Services? Forum

[RamTitan]

I'm trying to get clients to sign up for my LSAT tutoring. I posted on craigslist, but haven't thought of any other avenues to advertise, except for posting my stuff on a college campus (but that seems more like a waste of time than anything). What have other tutors done to drum up business?

Btw, I'm charging $50 per session....figured if I drastically undercut Princeton Review I could get some people enticed.

[jrass]

If you price yourself too low people will assume you're low quality. This is why businesses that are advertising based on offering similar quality for less typically have a comparable price to the leaders, but then offer discounts.

[RamTitan]

That's a fair point. However, I'm having trouble finding places for people to hear my message. I could start a Facebook page.....really don't want to start bidding on keywords for Google searches lol

[kaiser]

I advertised under the tutoring/services section of Craigslist, and because I live in a densely populated area, this led to many client inquiries. Never needed to advertise outside of Craigslist and word of mouth. Of course, you will see tons of other LSAT tutor craigslist posts. The key is to distinguish yours from the pack.

[jrass]

Students that find either of ya'll through craigslist will generally start with lower scores. A lot of the craigslist folks already used Kaplan or another big company, and they also tend to be stranger. I had an instance where I was tutoring someone I worked with a lot for one hour, and then she asked me to accompany her to a college function for the second hour but would still pay me. In another instance, the father who was paying also paid me to see a movie with his child who was the student. I was very desperate for money at this point in my life so I always said yes, but in retrospect I took some risks that probably were not smart, and that I'd never have to take working for a large company. If you only care about the money then it's all good.

[appind]

what's your lsat score? it's probably a good idea that the rate equal the value you can provide.

[Clyde Frog]

It's hard to break into the LSAT tutoring biz. You have big companies like Kaplan that are completely worthless grabbing a big chunk of the students. Then you have solid companies like Manhattan, testmasters, powerscore ect., grabbing another big chunk. You also have to compete against LSAT tutoring masters like Jeffort that have been doing it like twenty years and have a good referral base. I'd suggest just going to law school and getting a stable job until then.


Also, going through your posts it looks like you haven't actually taken the LSAT. That may have to do with your problem getting clients.

[Clyde Frog]

Students that find either of ya'll through craigslist will generally start with lower scores. A lot of the craigslist folks already used Kaplan or another big company, and they also tend to be stranger. I had an instance where I was tutoring someone I worked with a lot for one hour, and then she asked me to accompany her to a college function for the second hour but would still pay me. In another instance, the father who was paying also paid me to see a movie with his child who was the student. I was very desperate for money at this point in my life so I always said yes, but in retrospect I took some risks that probably were not smart, and that I'd never have to take working for a large company. If you only care about the money then it's all good.

How is getting paid to see a movie not a smart idea? Sounds like you had a pretty good thing going.

[Clearly]

Just get a job with a major company, the pay is pretty decent and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches. If you want to grow an actual business you'll need more than craigslist most likely, and you're in for a lot of work and a high chance of failure. For my tutoring services I networked with schools, built a competitive website with SEO that actual drove traffic, and most importantly had a product (and personality) that resulted in a very high referral rate, such that the vast majority of people I tutored referred friends to me.

Also it's February, it's a total deadzone and has been since December. Things till pick up in a little while for June Prep, but even established businesses don't see much work in Dec- Mar/Apr.

[Clearly]

Also, going through your posts it looks like you haven't actually taken the LSAT. That may have to do with your problem getting clients.

lol seriously OP?!

[RZ5646]

Also, going through your posts it looks like you haven't actually taken the LSAT. That may have to do with your problem getting clients.

lol seriously OP?!

Get a 99th percentile score, then think about tutoring.

[kcdc1]

I used to tutor math and SAT prep on WyzAnt. It worked pretty well as far as advertising to parents who wanted help for their kids. Not sure how it would work for LSAT prep, but it could be worth a shot.

[RamTitan]

Also, going through your posts it looks like you haven't actually taken the LSAT. That may have to do with your problem getting clients.

Uhhhh yeah......looks like I've been caught. A big part of the appeal of tutoring the test was that it would be a learning opportunity for me (teaching a concept/explaining it to other people would be a big reinforcement for learning).

With that said, I never stated I took the LSAT in my craigslist post, so I'm not false advertising! However, the more I've talked with other people it seems that this would be a bad idea. Starting an LSAT study group would be great, but I also don't know how to go about other than registering for meetup.com and paying a small fee.

P.S. My practice test score is a 171, which is a 25 point improvement from my diagnostic (my selling point).

[RamTitan]

Also, going through your posts it looks like you haven't actually taken the LSAT. That may have to do with your problem getting clients.

lol seriously OP?!

Get a 99th percentile score, then think about tutoring.

That's my goal score range, so that will be me someday.

However, I noticed that the tutors Princeton Review employ are in the upper 160s.

[Clearly]

Also, going through your posts it looks like you haven't actually taken the LSAT. That may have to do with your problem getting clients.

lol seriously OP?!

Get a 99th percentile score, then think about tutoring.

That's my goal score range, so that will be me someday.

However, I noticed that the tutors Princeton Review employ are in the upper 160s.

You don't have the upper 160s either. You have a 1xx. Not even trying to sound like a dick, but no one is gonna pay you to take them somewhere you haven't been yet.

[RamTitan]

Also, going through your posts it looks like you haven't actually taken the LSAT. That may have to do with your problem getting clients.

lol seriously OP?!

Get a 99th percentile score, then think about tutoring.

That's my goal score range, so that will be me someday.

However, I noticed that the tutors Princeton Review employ are in the upper 160s.

You don't have the upper 160s either. You have a 1xx. Not even trying to sound like a dick, but no one is gonna pay you to take them somewhere you haven't been yet.

Yeah, I'm aware that I don't have a real score yet.

[jrass]

I tutored before I took the test, but not on my own. I only started tutoring on my own because of the post-February dry spurt resulted in the company not running classes until late April. If you do it full time, you're going to make 80% of your yearly income between May and December.