You can’t be a good tutor if you don’t have some sales chops. I’m not talking about packages, discounts, Always Be Closing, or Glengarry Glen Ross tactics. What you’re selling is work. You’re selling it to the student. And that student pays with time and attention.
As tutors, we like to focus on explanations, materials, strategies, and techniques. But none of them matter if your student won’t do any work. Therefore, a crucial part of the job is convincing the student to follow your program.
If that sounds strange, consider just how many questions a good student will answer for you. If you assign one practice test plus review plus drills in one week, they might easily answer 200 questions. If you meet 20 times, that’s 4000 questions. Come up with whatever calculation you want, but we’re talking about thousands of questions, and therefore thousands of minutes. I won’t give a random person on the street thousands of dollars just because they ask, and a teenager is not going to give you thousands of minutes just because you ask.
Consider also that you may be asking them to complete this work in a particularly irritating way. For example, I don’t want students to just read the reading question and pick an answer. I want them to go back to find information, think for a second about what the answer should look like (they hate this part), then look for something wrong in three of the answer choices. This requires a lot more willpower; it’s hard to use this approach for 30+ minutes.
If you think a teenager will gladly accept this pile of work and execute it in exactly the manner you specify, remember that, as my friend and fellow tutor Shayne Bybee says, “This is the same kid whose sweatshirt has been sitting on your staircase for three days.”
But they do have the time budget. They are awake 15-16 hours per day, and at most half of that time is spent in school. That’s a minimum of 60 hours outside of school. Yes, they have sports and dance and homework and prom and illnesses and relatives visiting and holidays…but they can give you 3-4 hours per week, if they really want to. The question is, can you make them want to?
“Wait! If a kid doesn’t do any work, that’s my fault?” Not exactly. Although…maybe! If I’m selling cars and someone shows up wanting to buy a Ford Mustang for $200, is it my fault for not selling him a Mustang? Of course not. The customer didn’t have the right budget for my product. But let’s say the customer shows up willing to spend $600/month on a car. He doesn’t know which one yet, but he’s done some research and knows a few of the features he wants. He’s ready to buy something today. Is it your fault if he doesn’t buy? Definitely.
And in most cases, students do show up ready to work. They’ve seen their friends and siblings go through the process. They know it will require mock tests and weekly homework assignments, and that it might drag on for months. They may not be excited about this work or know exactly what they’ll need to do, but they have mentally set aside some time. If you can’t convince them to spend that time (and hopefully a little more) on test prep…Yes, it is your fault.
The process starts by getting to know your customer. What’s your goal? What have you tried so far? What has or hasn’t worked? What’s your budget?
Then you start to offer them products. And the “products” here could be books or software, but they could also be plans (meeting every week for an hour; doing three hours of homework per week). Or they could be strategies, like not spending more than a minute on an ACT math question, or starting in the middle of the SAT R/W modules (so that you do the hard reading last).
You may also try to upsell, when it makes sense for the student. Maybe she didn’t plan to do any work over winter break. You may need to explain that she’ll likely end up doing more work in the long run with that plan, because she’ll have to waste time recovering ground she lost over break. But if she can possibly commit to just 10 minutes per day then she will do a lot less work in the long run.
And you may develop sales tricks over time. Here’s a good one: instead of telling the student how much work they’ll be doing this week, ask them how much they think they can do. They will almost always throw out a higher-than-expected number. But if they don’t, go through every day with them. How’s your schedule Monday? Any free periods during school? When do you get home? Do you have a lot of tests this week? Worst case, if the student does have 4 tests, 3 essays, and 2 soccer tournaments, you can give them a light assignment. At least the student knows you’re not indiscriminately hammering them with work…and they’ll be more open to a heavy assignment when they have more time.
Why dwell on the salesy aspects of tutoring? First, because they surprised me. I’ve never considered myself a “sales guy” – I don’t even like calling the pizza place to order a grandma pie. (Of course, I call anyway – grandma pies are delicious.)
But there’s another reason. A lot of smart people seem to think that AI is going to replace tutors. Bill Gates said AI will be “...as good a tutor as any human.” Sam Altman said, “Our children will have virtual tutors who can provide personalized instruction in any subject, in any language, and at whatever pace they need.” And here’s Marc Andreesen: “Every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful.” Hilariously, there is one job that Marc Andreesen thinks AI can never replace: his own!
Maybe these people are wrong about timing, or maybe they’re just wrong, but I think it would be foolish to dismiss their opinions entirely. I have no idea what AI will be able to do in 5 or 10 or 20 years, but I’m already amazed by what it can do today. In order to be prepared, I want to first understand what tutoring actually is.