This is the first in a three-part series by Michael Gibben, Founder of Coach for Tutors, leading up to his workshop on finding and keeping great tutoring clients at the Love Tutoring Festival on Tuesday 29th June at 3pm BST.
Your prospective family has called and/or emailed you. You have had a successful initial chat with them and they are now ready to meet you. This meeting could be called a discovery meeting, or other names based on your vision for your tutoring business. This meeting is key for building rapport with your prospective family and showing parents why working with you is the best option for their child. These five discovery meeting keys provide you with a solid path for evolving your prospective family to an excited new client.
- A customised assessment for your amazing new student. What does this look like? How is this assessment customised to this particular student?
- A small gift to provide your student after the assessment. As a guide, what are your student’s interest(s) (e.g. baseball, creation of slime)? You would learn these during your initial call. Provide a gift for the student and/or family based on interest is a great bridge and makes this discovery meeting more personable.
- New questions. Continue to ask questions to your students and their parents/guardians. Ask and learn more.
- Have assessment & program procedures and protocols ready. Provide your prospective family with an outline of your programs and prices. Be transparent and share the value of your amazing service and how it will help your prospects’ child.
- Amazing gratitude to match your awesome attitude. Thank your new client for taking the opportunity to work as a team with you. Provide two business cards, one for your new client and one for them to share with a potential new referral. An effective and powerful way to build business is through word of mouth. To keep top of mind and continue to impress, mark and email over your new client’s assessment results the next business day.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have an eager client that has enrolled with you! This is the first step to building your successful relationship with your client. The next step is setting up the ultimate, five-star first session for this new client.
For this five-star experience, the following five pieces will guide you there:
- Link Resources to Your New Student’s Needs and Interests. Interest based learning shows a personable side to your tutoring and this personal addition expedites building positive rapport with your new student and can be a key factor in early motivation toward learning.
- Send a Friendly Reminder Email the Day Before. A short and simple message reminding your new client about their upcoming session will place a smile on their face. Adding in a titbit about what will be taught during the session and a fun activity that will be done creates eager anticipation.
- Be Early to Your Session. Arrive (online) 5-10 minutes early for your session. It shows amazing professionalism. Do not be late, set the bar high.
- Be Engaging and Insightful. Customise your first session around getting to further know your student and continue to build interest in learning. Add specific feedback at the end of your first session and stay (online) a few minutes after to answer questions your new student and parents have.
- Next Day Follow Up. Check in the next day and provide your new client with a bonus such as a downloadable resource. Parents/guardians often appreciate this.
Remember, connections foster relationships and relationships spark growth for your business.
The next part of Finding and Keeping Great Clients (Part 2) will explore how to further build a client’s positive tutoring experience and strategies to navigate when a client reveals they are having a negative tutoring experience …