After talking to nearly 200 teachers in the past few months, I’ve gathered a list of reasons why ESL teachers were penalized or even fired by online companies:

– Sipped water during the lesson 

– Stayed in the restroom too long 

– Too many soft cancellations

– Didn’t follow the curriculum precisely 

– Not very “engaging”

– Voice was soft

– Missed a day due to a friend’s funeral

– Missed lessons due to illness, tech issues, emergencies, etc.

 …

The list goes on.

And sometimes, teachers’ contracts got terminated or weren’t renewed for no reason at all.

This situation is actually pretty easy to understand.

The online ESL industry is facing more and more severe competition due to the low market entry barriers when starting an online ESL company only requires money to develop an online platform, recruit teachers, and attract customers.

When competition goes up, the first action these companies take is try to improve their customer relationships and cut costs.

In other words, they put their customers before teachers and reduce teachers’ rates, which take a significant portion of their operating cost.

Like I’ve said before, working for online companies is not sustainable since you don’t control anything.

When you have to leave the company, you don’t get to keep your student contacts or the good reviews you’ve been developing for years.

When the company goes down, you lose everything and have to start all over again.

However, with your own business, every penny you invest and every minute you spend generate a return and add value to your OWN business.

If you believe you can do better with your OWN business,

If you want to have a business that you can rely on and stick with for years to come,

Start your OWN online teaching business TODAY!

Have you ever thought about what your business would look like when you’re making over $100K a year?

This might be what you imagine:

– In order to make over $100K a year, you need to teach a lot of students. You probably have too many and need to hire teachers to help you.

– As your business grows, you have to teach less and less since you need to spend time managing the teachers you hire and running your big company. 

This is one business model to grow your business. I call it the horizontal model. You grow horizontally, hiring teachers to generate more revenue.

There is another model, the vertical model. It works like this:

– You teach one-on-one first. When you get more students, you group these students together and offer group sessions. With group sessions, you are able to double, triple, even quadruple your hourly rate so you can have your 6-figure business on your own.

– Throughout this process, you grow vertically, so you’re always the one teaching.

These two models are both available to you, but only the vertical model works for the following reasons:

1. Only the vertical model works for online teaching businesses. 

You know you must transition to niche teaching to have an online teaching business. A vertical model is the only model that works for niche teachers.

It’s simple: When you are a niche teacher, students come to you because they are from your niche and want to work with you. There is no way you can share students from your own niche with other teachers.

2. The vertical model allows you to spend more time teaching and less time managing. 

As a teacher, you must love teaching and prefer it to managing or dealing with admin work.

With the vertical model, you are always the one teaching and helping your students. You don’t have a big team to manage.

Believe me, you will hate yourself when you have to worry about filling up your teachers’ calendars and spending countless hours on marketing, accounting, HR, etc.

3. The vertical model is more profitable.

With a small team, you will be able to maintain your margin above 80%, while with the horizontal model, the margin cannot stay over 50% because you need a reasonable share for teachers working for you.

4. The vertical model helps you develop your own brand. 

As a niche teacher, you build your own community around your niche and develop your own brand while you are growing.

When you constantly deliver quality work, people talk about you and reach out to you. You get testimonials and referrals. You grow your business organically with your own brand.

Go find your niche and grow vertically!

 

P.S. Watch a free training video here to learn more about how to start and grow your profitable, sustainable, and scalable business TODAY.

What does sustainable mean to you? What does a sustainable business mean to you?

I have written two articles to help ESL teachers better understand what an online teaching business looks like when it is profitable and scalable.

Now let’s talk about being sustainable.

If you’ve already read my articles on being profitable (read here) and scalable (read here), you know how important it is to have a business that can generate revenue now and has the potential to generate even more in the future. But to me, it is even more important to have a business that can generate consistent revenue and that you can stick with for years to come.

That is sustainability.

A sustainable teaching business should be a business under your control.

In a sustainable business, you’re in the driver’s seat.

You decide who you teach, what you teach, and how you teach. You ensure high quality instruction to keep your business running—your students are satisfied and they’re willing to give testimonials and referrals.

Teaching with online ESL companies is not sustainable because you don’t have control. You don’t decide who you teach, what you teach, or how you teach. You do your best to maintain the quality, but it slips from all the constraints.

You don’t even control how long you teach with these companies because the real nightmare starts when the company you worked with for years goes out of business and there’s nothing left for you. You don’t get to keep your student contacts or the good reviews you’ve been developing for years.

When the company goes down, you lose everything and have to start all over again. However, with your own business, every penny you invest and every minute you spend generate a return and add value to your business.

A sustainable teaching business should focus on the people you enjoy teaching.

It can get overwhelming when teachers try to decide on their niche because there are so many things to consider.

Does the niche have enough students? Can they afford to pay a higher rate? What’s the competition like for this niche?

I always stop nervous teachers there and ask them who they most enjoy teaching—the most important factor to me. If you don’t enjoy who you teach, how can your business be sustainable?

With your own teaching business, you will be teaching, talking to, and otherwise dealing with people from your niche for hours and hours every single day. If you don’t enjoy working with them, even if you have the largest and richest market with the least competition, you’ll call it quits one day. This is exactly why it is important to search deep in your heart for what you really want and who you enjoy having as your students. Only then can you have a sustainable business that you can stick with for years to come.

A sustainable teaching business should allow for a pleasant teaching experience.

There are two types of teaching, session-based teaching and program-based teaching (read more here).

In session-based teaching, sessions are independent from each other. The focus is determined by students and varies between sessions. What you teach and how you teach in each session are modified to meet the specific needs of the student for that particular session. You have to customize each session with a tailored lesson plan for the student. It is manageable with only a few students but won’t be sustainable when you start growing your business with more and more students.

In program-based teaching, sessions are integrated as a whole. The focus of each session is predetermined by you to serve the goals of the program. What and how you teach in each session are systematically designed to maximize the results of the program. At least 80% of what you teach and how you teach it in the program will be consistent across students, as they are from the same niche (read more here). You get better at teaching the program as you progress. The teaching experience is more enjoyable since you repeat the same processes with a consistent structure you can follow again and again.

To summarize, a sustainable online teaching business should be your own business focused on a niche you enjoy, which offers program-based teaching that provides a more pleasant teaching experience.

Watch the video here to learn more about how to start and grow your profitable, sustainable, and scalable business TODAY.

What does a profitable online teaching business look like?

When I tell people what I do, I stick to this line: “I help ESL teachers start and grow their own online business that is profitable, sustainable, and scalable.”

I often see that these three words—profitable, sustainable, and scalable—don’t resonate with teachers like I expect. They’re simple words, but what on earth do they look like in an online teaching setting?

I’ve explained scalable in a previous post, now let’s talk about profitable.

If you want to teach ESL online, you have three options:

1. Work with online ESL companies who provide you with students and lesson plans to follow, such as VIPKid, Gogokid, Dada, iTutor, etc.

2. Work on freelancer platforms where you create your own profile and attract students who register with the platform, such as Verbling, italki, Cambly, etc.

3. Work independently and get students by yourself

Which option is profitable, or more profitable than the others?

To measure profitability, we can start with this simple equation:

                                  Profit = revenue – cost = price x volume – cost

We can ignore cost and look only at revenue since there is little to no cost associated with teaching online:

  Revenue = price x volume

For online teaching, we can put it this way:

                       Revenue/week = average hourly rate x average # of hours/week

Now that we have the equation, let’s compare!

 Option 1: Working with Online ESL Companies 

The hourly rate is fixed on your contract and the average is about $20, based on data I’ve collected from over 50 ESL teachers who are currently working with these companies.

The number of hours you can teach with these companies is determined by

– The maximum # of hours you can dedicate based on your and your students’ availability

– The # of sessions you can book with the company

The average is around 20 hours, according to those teachers. The equation is then, on average,

$400/week = $20/hour x 20 hours/week

That’s $1,600 a month.

There are usually incentives for teachers to work unpopular hours or take on a bigger workload. That could add $200 a month, bringing the average revenue to $1,800. I’ve met teachers who can earn over $4,000 (or even $6,000) a month, but this requires a lot of hours, very good reviews, and a strong student base. It’s uncommon and inconsistent.

Working with ESL companies = $1,800/month

 Option 2: Working on Freelancer Platforms  

On average, teachers get about $15 per hour and work 20 hours a week, based on data I’ve collected from over 30 teachers currently working on freelancer platforms, which gives us

$300/week = $15/hour x 20 hours/week

That’s $1,200 a month.

The problem with freelancer platforms is not only lower revenue but also a fluctuating student volume. You have to compete with other teachers for students registered with the same platform. Teachers sometimes get a few students but sometimes none. You manage your profile and it’s hard to charge a higher price than others offering similar services.

Working on Freelancer Platforms = $1,200 /month

Option 3: Working Independently 

How about having your own online teaching business? Well, your revenue depends on your approach.

General Teaching

A general teacher potentially offers a wide range of services from conversational English to business English, accent reduction, exam preparation . . .

You will find it difficult to get students and charge a higher rate. The situation will get worse as more online companies and freelancer platforms enter the market, offering similar low rates with a large variety of teacher profiles. There is no way for you to compete if students can simply find your replacement for a bit less money.

Basically, general teachers with their own businesses will have a revenue lower than working with online companies or freelancer platforms (unless you have developed a strong clientele online and/or offline). And it is still difficult to grow your business to the next level by tapping into new clients.

Niche Teaching

As a niche teacher, you offer services to a specific group of people (read here to learn more about niche teaching) to address their specific problems with program-based services (read here to learn more about program-based teaching).

Being a niche teacher allows you to get students by yourself and at a higher rate. Why?

– With a niche, you are able to develop targeted messages that resonate with your niche so that your marketing is effective and affordable (read here to learn more about marketing).

– As a niche teacher, you are perceived as a specialist in your niche vs. a generalist somewhere out there. Compare a neurosurgeon and general physician—who earns more and works fewer hours?

Offering program-based services also allows you to charge a higher rate. Why?

– In program-based teaching, you manage student action by incorporating action elements into the program. You can hold students accountable with reminders and empower them to take action. Sufficient student action ensures the great results generated by the program (read here to learn more).

– The fact that you are more likely to get students results allows you to position your teaching as premium services that justify a higher rate.

Here are a couple of examples:

– Instead of teaching general English to Chinese kids for $20 an hour, my client Emily targets pre-kindergarten kids with a program that enables them to speak English with an American native-like accent in just 10 weeks. She charges $50 per hour for a 12-hour program, bringing her $600 per student up front. To earn $1,800 (average revenue with online companies), she only needs three students a month and gets more than that every month.

– Instead of teaching general business English, my client John helps non-English-speaking small business owners develop their English and business skills, which allow them to acquire more American clients and improve their revenue. John charges $100 per hour for his 15-hour program, bringing him $1,500 per client up front. To earn $6,000 a month (high-end revenue with online companies), he only needs four clients and consistently gets more than that every single month.

So what does a profitable teaching business look like?

It should be a teaching business with a well-defined niche and program-based services that allows you to get students on demand and charge the higher rate you deserve.

➢ Watch this video to learn more about how to start and grow your own teaching business that is profitable, sustainable, and scalable.

An ESL teacher I talked to today shared a very insightful observation:

There seems to be a general pattern which many online teaching companies/schools have followed or are following

They all started strong with attractive rates and nice perks for teachers

They made a lot of promises and were able to hold

All of the teachers talked about them and were excited to be a part of their ventures

They were indeed the rising stars

After a while, things started changing

They started taking away the benefits little by little

They started implementing ridiculous policies that were hard to follow

They started penalizing teachers for things that didn’t make sense

Teachers started leaving and finding other rising stars

Students started leaving because they couldn’t find the right teachers like they used to

These companies went down and eventually were out of business

Questions are:

Why are these online companies/schools doing this?

Why can’t they just learn their lessons?

Doesn’t the management know how important it is to treat teachers well?

Doesn’t the management know teachers are the only reason why they have a business?

Yes, they know, they know it too well

The truth is:

People who made decisions when they first started were not the same people making decisions when the company went down

I believe that people who started online companies/schools loved this industry and wanted to make an impact on teachers and students

However, when the companies started growing because of this same passion, more and more stakeholders joined, diluted their shares, and diminished their decision making power

Unfortunately, they had to watch when the bad decisions were made and could do nothing about them

So, who are these people behind these bad decisions?

They are the investors who only need a return on their investment and don’t care about the company, don’t care about this industry

One company goes down, they can find another company, as long as the numbers make sense to them

One industry goes down, they can find another industry, as long as the numbers make sense to them

Do you agree?

Do you want your independence?

Are you ready to start your OWN business?

>>>Click here to watch a free training video and start your OWN business today<<<