How to stop bleeding money and make THOUSANDS a month with your business
In the summer of 2010, my friends and I were ecstatic. It wasn't because this was the only window of amazing weather, no school, and bikinis in Toronto; it was because we started a business. We were going to change EVERYTHING! The company was Tutorcurve, and our slogan put it best, we were "Bringing Passion Back to Academia"!!!!.
After 5 months, guess how much money we made?
48 dollars. 48 DOLLARS!
Guess how many customers we had?
2 people and one of them never paid us! (I was still excited though, for I reported in my scholarship essays that our customer base grew 200 %!)
Don't worry, I didn't end up out of school and on the street, this is where the good news comes in. After some painstakingly hard lessons, we turned the company around to make a monthly profit of $1500. That's 15625% GROWTH , and the company is still chugging along!
Many of you may be in the same frustrating spot I was in, so I want to share with you the KEY realizations that dug Tutorcurve out of the grave. I want you to make ten times more than you are right now!
1. When you "niche down", NICHE DOWN!!
Everyone preaches the importance of Niching down, but seldom do we understand the EXTENT to which to niche down.
I had a tremendous vision for Tutorcurve, so for months we weren't just an Academic tutoring company, we wanted to handle everything! Martial Arts? Cooking? University tutoring? Life coaching? Yoga? Tutorcurve was for you!.
Counter-intuitively, this gave us two HUGE disadvantages.
• NOBODOY resonated with our message.
• We had NO credibility.
Imagine an ad that is trying to sell math tutoring for your high school child, while also offering Martial Arts lessons and Yoga for your grandfather. NOBODY that reads that ad would even THINK to consider the company. Let's face it; if we see something that doesn't resonate to our very core, we glance past it.
The message was diluted so much that it was a waste of energy to even spread it around. The second problem was equally detrimental. How can somebody that tutors middle school children also be an expert in Martial arts? You wouldn't expect to pay more than the Wal-mart price for any of it! If you wanted just one of the services, you would go to a SPECIALIST.
After inspiration from Ramit Sethi at Iwillteachyoutoberich and various other authors in business, we developed the best niche strategy.
When you niche down, niche down SO MUCH that you can say your customer's name!!!
You have to know
• What their fears are
• What their goals are
• What they are thinking about
• How much they can afford
• How urgently they need your product
• How old they are
• Where do they get their information
• Where they are
Once you have the customer, focus on one, very SPECIFIC product that is guaranteed to solve their problems, with the least effort on their part.
Some people worry that if they get too specific, they'll only have one customer. Not only is it impossible to niche down that low, if you do, the person will pay you MILLIONS for it.
For Tutorcurve, we ditched everything and focused on upper-middle class Torontonians that needed Grade 11 and 12 Math tutoring for their children. With University admissions around the corner, we made it as seamless as possible to give their children the BEST chance to succeed in life.
2. Make the ALL-IN-ONE solution
There are hundreds of PHD's in the tutoring category that offer much greater expertise than we do. We hire University students, while these people are at the forefront of their fields. It was hard to deal with them at first, but now we are charging the SAME amount as the teachers are, and it's all because of the ALL-IN-ONE solution.
It's hard to believe, but the difference between 20 dollars an hour, and 200 dollars an hour is that last mile that you have to make your product OVER-THE-TOP. When you look at it in perspective, it is only an extra 10% to get it to the next level--but that 10% is hard.
I'll show you what I mean with an example. There is a tutoring company literally a block from my house that is specialized with the middle schools of the area. They not only tutor the kids, but they pick them up from school, give them a balanced meal, get them to exercise and make sure they are farther ahead than the schools! They charge hundreds of dollars, and the best part is that they have a fricking WAIT-LIST!
That is the power of the All-in-one solution. When the customer doesn't have to put any energy into it and their goals are just miraculously handled, they will throw money at you!
For us, our tutors come directly to their homes, and we guarantee that if their children do the work, they will get accepted to the University of their choice. We also charge LESS for unscheduled visits!(We let the tutors take 100% commission on it, which allows us to charge a monthly fee, making it EASY AS HELL for them to pay us). It’s quite exciting actually because we just got the first testimonial of a pupil getting a 5000 dollar scholarship to their dream university( In canada, tuition is 5000 dollars).
3. Satisfy a NEED
The subject can be talked about for days, but I'm going to tell you the most important thing I learned, and it was from a guy called David Walsh.
The make or break in your business is that it has to satisfy an actual NEED, not something that "would be nice". Learning about simplicity, Zen budhism, Self-actualization and is just NOT on people's minds enough for them to buy anything substantial. What people are worried about is their health, their success, their sexual lives, their safety, and money. No matter what the business is, it will only be successful if it pitches to one of these needs.
For months we tried to sell our Tutoring service as a different strategy that relieved stress and made learning fun for students. I lost every dollar that I put into advertising from that. Now, even though we still do that, we are selling the security that the child will SUCCEED, they will be happy and will have all the opportunity. Parents are much more worried about their children having a future than them getting stressed over homework.
4. Find what works, repeat it over and over--ignore the rest
This is the dogma that saved us HUNDREDS of dollars that we would have continued to pour in our business.
In the beginning, the first thing that we did was register our business. Then, we made business cards. After that, we built a beautiful website. After that, we looked to hire dozens of employees for the "backorder" of students we would receive from our amazing business.
Guess what? To this day, not ONE dollar has ever come out of that website, or the business cards!
The most essential thing to do in your business is to get the customers. Don't worry about your websites, your business cards, or your paperwork. FOCUS on the customers.
We tested to see what got us the MOST customers, and we found that it was a local jewish newspaper ad, and school guidance councillors. It wasn't the sexiest thing to do, but it’s where our customers are at! As soon as we realized this, we systemized the process and get a continuous flow of quality customers to date.
The important lesson is to find what works, repeat it over and over, and ignore the rest.
Many of you have online businesses, so you may scoff and say "Stepan, we really do need websites and blogs, we are an online business!”. I'll tell you one thing; the day you get any money from your blog is the day that everyone else has finished making MILLIONS. Take a look around you; there are huge venues where you can reach your customers. You can sell something at this forum even, and you would probably make more money in a DAY than you would in a YEAR from your blog!
All in all, focus on the finer details AFTER you have the customer.
If you're able to get one piece of helpful information out of this, and you act on it, it will have made the post worth writing.
Regards,
Stepan
After 5 months, guess how much money we made?
48 dollars. 48 DOLLARS!
Guess how many customers we had?
2 people and one of them never paid us! (I was still excited though, for I reported in my scholarship essays that our customer base grew 200 %!)
Don't worry, I didn't end up out of school and on the street, this is where the good news comes in. After some painstakingly hard lessons, we turned the company around to make a monthly profit of $1500. That's 15625% GROWTH , and the company is still chugging along!
Many of you may be in the same frustrating spot I was in, so I want to share with you the KEY realizations that dug Tutorcurve out of the grave. I want you to make ten times more than you are right now!
1. When you "niche down", NICHE DOWN!!
Everyone preaches the importance of Niching down, but seldom do we understand the EXTENT to which to niche down.
I had a tremendous vision for Tutorcurve, so for months we weren't just an Academic tutoring company, we wanted to handle everything! Martial Arts? Cooking? University tutoring? Life coaching? Yoga? Tutorcurve was for you!.
Counter-intuitively, this gave us two HUGE disadvantages.
• NOBODOY resonated with our message.
• We had NO credibility.
Imagine an ad that is trying to sell math tutoring for your high school child, while also offering Martial Arts lessons and Yoga for your grandfather. NOBODY that reads that ad would even THINK to consider the company. Let's face it; if we see something that doesn't resonate to our very core, we glance past it.
The message was diluted so much that it was a waste of energy to even spread it around. The second problem was equally detrimental. How can somebody that tutors middle school children also be an expert in Martial arts? You wouldn't expect to pay more than the Wal-mart price for any of it! If you wanted just one of the services, you would go to a SPECIALIST.
After inspiration from Ramit Sethi at Iwillteachyoutoberich and various other authors in business, we developed the best niche strategy.
When you niche down, niche down SO MUCH that you can say your customer's name!!!
You have to know
• What their fears are
• What their goals are
• What they are thinking about
• How much they can afford
• How urgently they need your product
• How old they are
• Where do they get their information
• Where they are
Once you have the customer, focus on one, very SPECIFIC product that is guaranteed to solve their problems, with the least effort on their part.
Some people worry that if they get too specific, they'll only have one customer. Not only is it impossible to niche down that low, if you do, the person will pay you MILLIONS for it.
For Tutorcurve, we ditched everything and focused on upper-middle class Torontonians that needed Grade 11 and 12 Math tutoring for their children. With University admissions around the corner, we made it as seamless as possible to give their children the BEST chance to succeed in life.
2. Make the ALL-IN-ONE solution
There are hundreds of PHD's in the tutoring category that offer much greater expertise than we do. We hire University students, while these people are at the forefront of their fields. It was hard to deal with them at first, but now we are charging the SAME amount as the teachers are, and it's all because of the ALL-IN-ONE solution.
It's hard to believe, but the difference between 20 dollars an hour, and 200 dollars an hour is that last mile that you have to make your product OVER-THE-TOP. When you look at it in perspective, it is only an extra 10% to get it to the next level--but that 10% is hard.
I'll show you what I mean with an example. There is a tutoring company literally a block from my house that is specialized with the middle schools of the area. They not only tutor the kids, but they pick them up from school, give them a balanced meal, get them to exercise and make sure they are farther ahead than the schools! They charge hundreds of dollars, and the best part is that they have a fricking WAIT-LIST!
That is the power of the All-in-one solution. When the customer doesn't have to put any energy into it and their goals are just miraculously handled, they will throw money at you!
For us, our tutors come directly to their homes, and we guarantee that if their children do the work, they will get accepted to the University of their choice. We also charge LESS for unscheduled visits!(We let the tutors take 100% commission on it, which allows us to charge a monthly fee, making it EASY AS HELL for them to pay us). It’s quite exciting actually because we just got the first testimonial of a pupil getting a 5000 dollar scholarship to their dream university( In canada, tuition is 5000 dollars).
3. Satisfy a NEED
The subject can be talked about for days, but I'm going to tell you the most important thing I learned, and it was from a guy called David Walsh.
The make or break in your business is that it has to satisfy an actual NEED, not something that "would be nice". Learning about simplicity, Zen budhism, Self-actualization and is just NOT on people's minds enough for them to buy anything substantial. What people are worried about is their health, their success, their sexual lives, their safety, and money. No matter what the business is, it will only be successful if it pitches to one of these needs.
For months we tried to sell our Tutoring service as a different strategy that relieved stress and made learning fun for students. I lost every dollar that I put into advertising from that. Now, even though we still do that, we are selling the security that the child will SUCCEED, they will be happy and will have all the opportunity. Parents are much more worried about their children having a future than them getting stressed over homework.
4. Find what works, repeat it over and over--ignore the rest
This is the dogma that saved us HUNDREDS of dollars that we would have continued to pour in our business.
In the beginning, the first thing that we did was register our business. Then, we made business cards. After that, we built a beautiful website. After that, we looked to hire dozens of employees for the "backorder" of students we would receive from our amazing business.
Guess what? To this day, not ONE dollar has ever come out of that website, or the business cards!
The most essential thing to do in your business is to get the customers. Don't worry about your websites, your business cards, or your paperwork. FOCUS on the customers.
We tested to see what got us the MOST customers, and we found that it was a local jewish newspaper ad, and school guidance councillors. It wasn't the sexiest thing to do, but it’s where our customers are at! As soon as we realized this, we systemized the process and get a continuous flow of quality customers to date.
The important lesson is to find what works, repeat it over and over, and ignore the rest.
Many of you have online businesses, so you may scoff and say "Stepan, we really do need websites and blogs, we are an online business!”. I'll tell you one thing; the day you get any money from your blog is the day that everyone else has finished making MILLIONS. Take a look around you; there are huge venues where you can reach your customers. You can sell something at this forum even, and you would probably make more money in a DAY than you would in a YEAR from your blog!
All in all, focus on the finer details AFTER you have the customer.
If you're able to get one piece of helpful information out of this, and you act on it, it will have made the post worth writing.
Regards,
Stepan
Beginers blogging as carrier job
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