Some of the most difficult times I’ve had as a freelance teacher, and I’m sure you can relate to this, has been during vacation times. Today’s podcast will help you think about solutions that will help you serve your students even better, while keeping your income FLOWING even during vacation times.
- Christmas, Easter, summer vacations when school is out….
- The weird thing, we know these times are coming – they don’t change from one year to the next – yet we rarely think ahead for them, right?
- Every year – say for Christmas, do you find yourself in scramble mode, trying to figure out how to make ends meet when your students stop taking class for the season?
Here are a few ideas to help you brainstorm your vacation day cereal bag!
Kids:
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- Most kids get off from school at certain times of the year – but parents must keep working…what if you offered a camp or special after school/ out of school program to help parents who still need to work.
- My wife works in an after school program. What if you offered one?
Adults – working professionals, if that is your market, are used to going to training workshops. Seminars. Webinars.
- What is stopping you from offering one? Or two? Or three over the next month or two?
- What topics are areas of need for your students? Don’t think about grammar or vocabulary, or fluency. Think about e-mail writing, how to make effective English presentations with powerpoint, How to ace your next English conference call?
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- One company we worked for hired us to do a whole series of workshops around effective e-mail in English and power point presentations.
- We charged much more than regular classes because they were short, and the material easy to cover.
Key Questions to help you begin to move forward:
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- Who do you serve?
- What pain points do you see?
- How much $$ Do you need to cover your seasonal down time?
- How much do you need to charge per student/participant and how many times do you need to provide your solution to cover your costs?
Jacqualynne Newby says
This was an amazing episode for us ESL entrepreneurs. I am sharing this with all my colleagues. I will never think about cereal in the same way! Thank you Aaron.
Aaron Nelson says
Hi Jacqualynne – thank you so much for listening! I’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed the episode – and thank you for sharing it with your colleagues! That’s so generous of you! 🙂 So glad you are here! By the way, do you have any topics or questions you’d like me to cover in future episodes? I’d love your opinion!