There are dozens of reasons why professional tutors choose to sign up to agencies. It may seem counter-intuitive to sign up online with an agency especially when there may be so many local notice boards for you to place an ad for your services. Afterall, you probably want to serve local people.
Many private tutors that are new to the tutoring industry, often ask if there is a need for tutoring agencies and with a large number of websites that are effectively acting as notice board for tutors, why do people still use private tuition agencies?!
In this blog entry, we will do our best to explain why parents still use agencies and why professional tutors still join reputable agencies.
- Local notice boards and online notice boards can lead to many enquiries but few jobs. Most private tutors say that local and online boards have provided numerous enquiries but few actual assignments. There are lots of places to put a free or cheap listing for your services but most tutors would rather just teach than keep replying emails from families that never book them.
- The competition on the board means that you usually have to reduce your rates. With graduates charging £5-£10 per hour for private tuition, it can be difficult to justify why you want to charge £15 or even £20 per hour. This means that you’ll find yourself reducing your rates in order to meet the “market rate”. By working with an agency, you can maintain your agency rate and not be concerned about the ‘going rate’ on the notice board.
- Over the past few years, there has been a huge shift to online tutoring: There are a large number of websites that provide ‘on-demand live tuition’. This has effectively reduced the cost of tutoring and many people expect to pay no more than £20 per hour for face to face tutoring. It usually starts with Parent A bragging about how cheap their tuition was and following this, Parent B decides not to spend more than £20 per hour on their private tutor.
- Poor ratings and feedback due to last minute students: The biggest problem with the platforms with feedback systems is that you can very easily end up with negative feedback! With so many parents and students looking for last minute tuition, it can be hard to get the grade that the pupil wants. How do you handle enquiries from last-minute students? When using online and offline notice boards, you are guaranteed to get students that have been predicted a D but want to get an A* in the exam with less than 3 weeks to go.
- People that can afford it will go to an agency. An agency brand is generally stronger than a private tutor’s brand. If you are good at what you do, then you probably want to be paid your worth. Unfortunately most people that visit the regular online boards cannot afford this fee and this is where an agency can be extremely helpful.
By working with an agency, you can work with clients that can effectively pay your worth. If a parent pays £15,000 to £30,000 in private tuition fees for their child. They will be willing to pay anything upward of £30 per hour for your services. They will also be willing to refer you to friends and family that also have the same purchasing power and this means that you will finally be able to charge a rate that works for you!
Parents from WISE tutors contact us because they are looking for tutors with verified qualifications, experience and expertise. Your reviews are added to your online profile and this helps with attracting more clients to select your profile.
By signing up to tutor with WISE tutors, you are able to build your reputation as a professional tutor and over time, you can send new clients to view your online profile for them to see that you are a Bronze, Silver or Gold tutor.
Whether you are a seasoned tutor, or you are relatively new to the world of private tutoring, our goal is to be with you every step of the way from building your profile to gaining positive feedback from your students.
If you have any questions about registering with WISE Tutors, feel free to chat with us online or send an email to contactus@wisetutors.co.uk