Show 9 - How to Start a Lucrative Tutoring Business with Joanne Kaminski

Show Notes

How to Start an Online Tutor Business

tutorbird.com/joanne-kaminski

onlinetutorcoach.com

Show Transcript

Shaun Morgan

So excited to have Joanne Kaminsky on podcast today before I, you know, start talking to Joanne, just want to remind all of you that if you would like to come on the podcast, if you would like to get one on one financial coaching for free on this podcast, go to teach. True money show dot com slash guest I also really appreciate it if you give us a rating a review subscribe to the podcast and all those good things to help us grow the show all right so let's talk about Joanne because Joanne is awesome so Joanne is a trail blazer in the world of online tutoring with twenty plus years of experience as a teacher and a reading specialist she has made a seamless transition to becoming a sought after online reading tutor and businesss coach as the founder of online tutor coach Joanne empowers over twenty thousand tutors to grow their businesses and reach more students from her popular youtube channel and Facebook group to her inspiring instagram post and podcast Joanne is changing the game for online tutors everywhere and if you want to learn the secrets to success you can grab a copy of her uh Amazon best seller how to start an online tutor business making four to five figures a month that's a month right and not now not how much you make in a year that's month And get to inspired take your tutoring business to the next level.

Joanne Kaminski

Yes. Yes, a month.

Shaun Morgan

All right.

Joanne Kaminski

In fact, a lott of the tutors are now making six figures and their tutoring business for a year.

Shaun Morgan

Six figures.

Joanne Kaminski

Yes, yes,

Shaun Morgan

You started a huge tutoring businesss online. How did you get into tutoring?

Joanne Kaminski

Honestly, it was um, kind of like one of those uh, moments that I had, I actually left the teaching world because of a pain in my side. I was in and out of the hospital and I had to make a decision of if I was gonna come back the following school year. And I had three little ones at that time. So I had a, I had a three year old, a five year old, and a six year old at that time and I was like, you know what I need just to figure out a way to be able to make money from home and like be a mom who's present. Like that needs to be my focus right now.

Joanne Kaminski

And so I tried five other businesses and completely failed at them in my 1st year. And then in my 2nd year of being away from the school system, I was missing teaching so much that all of a sudden I had this brainstorm idea. I'm like I could do online like I know how to make that happen because of the businesses had done, like I know how to advertise for it, I know how to actually teach online, like I can picture it all right now. And so then I started the idea out there to other people and of course everybody was po pooling my idea that it couldn't happen.

Joanne Kaminski

Can't teach reading online. I put it out there to my sister in law, like, hey, I just want to see like if what I'm thinking is gonna work out. I'm like, because honestly, like I've been doing this in person. I had taken on like one or two kids to come to my house and did some tutoring throughout that 1st year and, and then. She kind of looked at me and she was like, you mean like I'm gonna be your guinea pig and I'm like, Oh no, your son is really struggling with reading and he lives in Illinois and I live in Wisconsin.

Joanne Kaminski

So I mean technically there's no other way that I'd be able to help him. This is really the only way I'd be able to help him. So if I can help him, I want to help him. And at the same time I'd like to see if this would work and if this would be a viable businesss. And she kind of grudgingly, in the beginning it took me a lot of convincing to get her to say yes, like I can't. I'm like it takes this much to get like one person to say yes to free tutoring. Are you kidding me? Like, I was actually like, I could not believe that I, I felt like I was giving this gift of gold to somebody and, and I had to convince them that this could work.

Joanne Kaminski

And then once her, her own, she got to see her own son reading on grade level and how quickly happened. I mean, she ended up becoming my advocate and talking about it to everybody that she could possibly to about it. And and even still today is a big advocate of, of what it is that I do. And over that year I I just continued to market my tutoring business and, and learn how to connect with other people and get the word on out there. Built my website and used Youtube and used all these organic strategies to be able to get found.

Joanne Kaminski

I even found a couple of ways to get paid to get found that worked really well as in addition, because I'm totally against like Facebook ads and Google ads when it comes to getting tutoring students. So, I really dived into everything that I possibly could, ah, organically, to try to get found. And today I'm not only book salad, like as soon as I lose a student, like not lose a student, but as soon as a student leaves because they've reached their goals, I automatically have somebody emailing me in my inbox asking me if I'm taking on a student right now and I'm able to fill that spot that quickly.

Shaun Morgan

That is incredible. Congratulations on your business growing so much. So. You did this after transitioning out of the classroom. I'm, I'm sure that most of your students or a lot of your students haven't transitioned yet. They, they're still teaching in the classroom also.

Joanne Kaminski

And I, how you suggest that I think it's a better idea to like get started while you're teaching, you know, take some of those down ones that you have, you know, to really build up your tutoring business or put those pieces in place, start tutoring, see if you like doing it. I found that I actually like teaching even more online and one on one I found that I, I just can't believe the types results I'm able to get. So I personally love, love, love it. Every tutor that I have worked with so far has said they feel like they're teaching more than they ever did in the classroom and without any of the headaches the admin issues or, you know, a principal looking over your head or curriculum deadlines you have to like be on this module by this date or, or any of those kinds of things.

Joanne Kaminski

Like nobody's looking over your shoulder and you can just really focus on the students and what your goals are for each of your students and reach them.

Shaun Morgan

I love that, you know, you, the, you have these, these goals you're trying to reach and you just get there when, when they get there. The one on one thing. I love teaching online. I think it's fantastic. I actually think that the world of teaching needs to go more towards, you know, people are, are put through a curriculum. Like automatically and then the teacher acts tutor than just a dispenser of information,

Joanne Kaminski

Yes. Yes.

Shaun Morgan

right? I think that would help our students a lot more, but I'm not making those large decisions because I'm not at the top. If you're teaching full time, You said you can use your downtime. Can you also tutor during the school year? Is that viable with amounts?

Joanne Kaminski

sure. I mean it really is going to depend on you and what, what does it look like when you come home from work if you have young kids? I, I don't know if I would necessarily, if I had young kids and I was teaching all day, if I would necessarily get this started at that point in my life. I Because you only get one chance to be a mom or dad, right? And you know, if you, if you want to do like teaching time and then tutoring time, that's thing. To do teaching time and then do part time tutoring in the evening, you're gonna miss out on a lott of those, those like big moments for your kids.

Joanne Kaminski

And I don't think you're really going to want to do that. You're going to miss out on their soccer games, their dance recitals, and taking them to the places that they need to go. It doesn't mean that it can't be done. It absolutely can be done. I think sometimes people just needed to prove to themselves that it can be done. Like they don't trust that it can be done, or they're not sure if they can do it, if they can really commit to it or those kinds of things. It also depends like, what is your position in the school system?

Joanne Kaminski

So if your position is, you know, full time classroom teacher, you got your 30 some odd kids inside of your classroom. You're constantly spending your time with creating your lesson plans and correcting papers all the time. You know, you really have to take a look at what are you able to handle because you don't. If you are already getting burnt out from teaching, then adding on tutoring on top of that might burn you out more. Or it could be a break and it could be something that you're like, wow, I love this even more.

Joanne Kaminski

This feels like play versus what I'm doing all day long. Honestly, any lesson for any of students. Students. Do 1 oz of lesson planning. I teach on demand. So as a child is coming across something that's difficult for them, I'm thinking about, well, how can I teach that to them so they understand that better, right? I'm teaching on demand. I'm not teaching, you know, to a curriculum. So it's a very different style of, of teaching where you're able to take a look at what are those specific gaps that you have and how can I, how can I fill those gaps?

Joanne Kaminski

As the tutor and how can you know, get to that next level in your learning?

Shaun Morgan

You're not trying to herd all the cats through the same hoop at the same time, is that?

Joanne Kaminski

And and I'm not trying to dumb down the smart kids because they can't get too smart before the other kids catch up to them, you know? And I've gotten to work with both sides. I've gotten to work with gifted kids who they're like, look, nobody's challenging them and they could move so much further. And I've had parents be like, Can you help them? And I'm like, are you kidding? Like I, It's so fun to work with kids that learn quickly, like, oh my gosh, compared to what you're working with, you know, dyslexic or kids with, you know, learning disabilities, those kinds of things, which is really the most of the types of students that I do end up working with.

Joanne Kaminski

It is so fun to get some of those kids that you're like, wow, you are rock star. You're just like go go, go, go go with them. Some parents are really eager in the early years too, to get their kids reading and they know that their kid is ready. Like, parents have this intuition. They're like, if I just only knew what to do next. And then they find me and they're like, can you help them like learn to read? Like they know their letters, they, they can't blend the sounds you know, can you take them to the next And like sure can.

Joanne Kaminski

And I can take those kido and I can get them reading at a 1st grade level before they even hit kindergarten.

Shaun Morgan

I love that. That is awesome! Alright. So you're a teacher full time? Have to figure out when you can do it. I mean, I'm a huge advocate of we have time as teachers, we have summers, okay, as much as we talk about how we're not paid for our summers, that's true, But that also means we have the time during the summer to do something like tutoring. And often I think a lot of people want their child to be tutored during the summer when they have more time to get their stuff done.

Joanne Kaminski

Yes.

Shaun Morgan

So I think there's actually an increase in demand during that time for sure.

Joanne Kaminski

there can be, yeah, if you, if you have the right marketing, advertising and the organic strategies in place, absolutely. If you just think that people are just going to find you and you just like have to like create these resources and then, you know, it's that build it and they will come. Model that doesn't work for this industry, it's not build it and they will come. I have to get the word out there in as many different ways as I possibly can if I want to be able to fill it. So if you are a go getter, then this is definitely for you.

Joanne Kaminski

If you're somebody who, you're just like, I don't know, like will I be able to get students, Can I get students? You can, you absolutely can. But not only that. Sean, Can I share something with you?

Shaun Morgan

Oh, I'm all for secrets.

Joanne Kaminski

all right so I I could never have like talked about money like when I was in the school system I never could have talked about money um I was making fifty dollars at that time when I left which you know it's okay but I I mean I had gone not only did I go to university and I had gone to cardinal street to get my masters and all of that kind of stuff but Thirty thousand dollars seemed like a lot of money to me then today I am able to work twenty hours a week making a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year.

Shaun Morgan

Wow.

Joanne Kaminski

And I thought in the beginning I thought in the beginning that going from teacher to tutor was a step down and I devalued myself because of that so I didn't charge enough for my services in the beginning but I'm telling you if you you guys who have you know the ten twenty years of experience under your belt already you can be charging eighty ninety hundred dollars an hour for your services easily today I'm charging a hundred and twenty five dollars an hour for my reading services and you know what people think they don't look at that and say I can't afford that they say wow you must be really good.

Shaun Morgan

And you are just to clarify for everyone, that's name, he is really good.

Joanne Kaminski

I am pretty, I am pretty good. I actually have learned how to close the gap, a full year with eight to 12 h of instruction teaching kids reading online, and that's unheard of in the school system. So when I found out I was able to do that with the assessments that I used and tracking I knew was on to something.

Shaun Morgan

yeah that that's incredible and I I I love that because I mean a hundred like let's say a hundred dollars an hour compare that to the twenty five thirty dollars an hour if you're lucky that you get if you like oh how about you stay after school Help us with like taking money at a basketball game, right? Like, what

Joanne Kaminski

which you rather oh my gosh can I tell you something my sister in law was doing that and I looked at her and I said chriss chris why why why are you doing this I'm like chris you are she teaches um calculus at the high school level I said chris you could be charging a hundred and fifty dollars an hour tutoring this subject how many basketball games do you have to sit at in order to make that kind of money and she still hasn't taken me up on it I'm like okay I'm done having a conversation with you next this is gonna her last year of teaching and next year she's get a part time job and she still isn't going to take a look at tutoring I'm like do you think I'm lying like what the heck whyy would you turn that like it's a natural skill for you that you could easily be making this money why are you turning down good money why like I just think about like even tutors get started with me in ten weeks I just had a lady who ended up getting twenty students in over the last seven months she's now making.

Shaun Morgan

what do you want to do with your time, right?

Joanne Kaminski

Paying seventy seven hundred dollars a month and she is just over the moon excited she's a single mom and she's just over the moon excited that she doesn't have to go back to the teaching world and she can just focus on herr tutoring business and know that she's always going to have enough students to be able to pay herr bills and even do a lot of extra fun stuff that she never even thought that she could do.

Shaun Morgan

Wow, so we're talking a lot about money. So means I want to ask you a question, right? So you saying she knows she's gonna have enough money. What do you do when it's not as much as you expect? Like like you, you have like, you know, ten students and then you dropped five because I don't know,

Joanne Kaminski

Sure.

Shaun Morgan

after them break their leg and whatever the reason is,

Joanne Kaminski

Well,

Shaun Morgan

how do you handle them?

Joanne Kaminski

and some just reach their goals, right, some reach their goals, some are going on vacation, they want to take a break or, you know, it is a little bit of a roller coaster in the beginning. That's a natural stage of the tutoring because you don't naturally have, like right now I can go into my inbox and I probably have two or three students that are leads right now inside of there that I can continue working on to be able to become a client, but I get these leads every single week. So it's learning lead generation.

Joanne Kaminski

And you do this in an organic manner through your website, through keywords, through learning this thing called Seo, which I know is like way out there for a lot of people. But it's pretty much, you know, when you type something on into, like to the search bar and, and then stuff comes up, it's, it's the reverse of that. It's knowing what to put in so that the people that when they type it in, they're finding your stuff and you come up on page one of Google. So I teach that strategy to people so that their stuff is showing on up and they can get found.

Joanne Kaminski

And I think once you get all of those pieces. It's kind of like you don't have to do too much. Like, I haven't advertised my tutoring services in the last six years. I haven't had to do anything because of all the work that I put on, in on the front end. So now I have so many referrals, I have so many connections, I, I, I keep myself amongst other tutors, right? Tutors have kids who, you know, might be struggling in the area that you help with. And I have this mantra help enough, people get what they want and you will automatically get what you want.

Joanne Kaminski

And so that's always my mantra is I'm just going to be of service, of value to other people and then just see where that brings me. And I continue to have clients that hire me. Because I, I have people that like, I'm business coaching and like, can you work with my kid? And I'm like, yeah, sure, of course I can. And so it's really cool. It's like these, these relationships that you,

Shaun Morgan

Yes.

Joanne Kaminski

you build over time in the networking and the, in the, the tutoring community. And that's I have the Facebook group so that people don't. Feel alone. Because teaching you've got like you've got your people, right, You've got like your, your, your grade level team that you've got. We also had houses at the school that I was in, so it was like 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade and all the teachers would get together for like weekly meetings and those kinds of things and you know, you had, you were surrounded by people.

Joanne Kaminski

But in tutoring it can be a very lonely businesss. So I created the ultimate support group for online tutors so that tutors didn't have to feel isolated and alone. They could feel like they were supported by a group of other people, and they could get to know other people and they could connect with people who tutor something that's the same or different, or just get different perspectives or learn about how people make decisions inside of their businesss. And and it's been a really great community for tutors to come on in and just kind of ask those burning questions that they have that they don't really have anywhere else to go to be able to ask for them.

Shaun Morgan

that's fantastic. I heard two really, really amazing things. You know, realizing it's going to be up and down at the beginning. So that's, I think it's a really good reason to keep your job while you're starting off because that where you have that, you know, foundation, I mean, and, and if you become a tutor, you don't have to quit your job just starting that out there.

Joanne Kaminski

But you're probably gonna want to.

Shaun Morgan

plenty of people that do it part time.

Joanne Kaminski

I mean, once you see how much money you can make, you, you'll be like, Wait,

Shaun Morgan

So just point is.

Joanne Kaminski

I can make that much here versus what that I have to do with over here.

Shaun Morgan

Well, point is that you can have that installed base as you're going through that fluctuation stage. And then the other huge point was.

Joanne Kaminski

Yeah.

Shaun Morgan

Networking, connecting with other people, people make things happen. So I think that those are two huge bits. So you said that you started out charging too little and now you charge what you're worth. How do you come up with pricing for tutoring services? If I'm starting tomorrow do I charge a hundred and twenty five bucks.

Joanne Kaminski

sure if you feel like you can so how confident would you feel charging a hundred twenty dollars.

Shaun Morgan

I I'm not starting.

Joanne Kaminski

All right well then there is the answer so it really does come down to how serious are you about it right um and how confident do you feel I mean if if I say a hundred twenty five dollars and you say to me yeah right like anybody's gonna pay that no you've got a lot of money mindset work that you have to do and I had a lot of money mindset work that I had to do I came from poverty you don't just go from you know from growing up in poverty to you know going into the school system to starting your own business and all of a sudden that poverty mindset has disappeared I had to learn how to go from being I not only that I also have to go from being an employee to being a business owner and that was a different mindset as well so I had two mindsets I was really fighting so the forty dollars an hour was actually based off of I had seen silver so this was my thinking at the here is my poverty mindset okay I thought okay sylvian is charging fifty dollars an hour for their students is back in two thousand ten but you're only paying the tutor fifteen.

Joanne Kaminski

There is no way there is no way they are reading specialist there just isn't and so who would you rather work with if you are a parent would you rather work with a reading specialist or would you rather work with somebody at sylvan who probably has somebody who's like right out of college or you know some teacher who's like just needing a few extra dollars to you know do it which would you rather and I think at the end of the day and they don't even see the same tutor every single time so they come on into into there right they come into their building and whoever's there for the day they grab their file and they apparently look at these notes magically and know what to do I don't believe that I mean unless they just have like a workbook model and they're like okay you're on page fifty six got it here you go I don't know what they're doing but I have not heard good things from from model so I was like well if they're charging fifty then I could charge forty that's how sick my thinking was clearly I was more I was worth even more than that at that time but to me forty was a lot of money and I had to get over that money hump and I had to say okay we just had a brand new tutor who just got started with us and she was charging fifty dollars an hour and she was like oh my gosh she's like you guys are all charging like a hundred bucks an hour let me to charge a hundred bucks an hour I'm like all right go for it like if you believe you can you can you're gonna get a client very first client that she gets signed up with goes wow you must really good she was like, Wow, I was not expecting that. I was expecting I can't afford that.

Joanne Kaminski

And I think what you'll find at some of the lower rates is that you'll find more of the people that are like, I can't afford that because we get into the money conversation too soon. And so a lot of times, like when, when a parent is asking you about your services and those kinds of things you need to have, you needed to have a system in place that runs smoothly for you where you're not making money. The 1st thing you talk about, you need to make the child. The very 1st thing that you talk about.

Joanne Kaminski

They're calling you because they have a problem, you have to dive deep into that problem. What is the problem, how long have they had it, you know, What have they been doing to try to solve this problem, you know? Have they done anything at school to try to help? Are they? Do they have an Iep? Ask all the questions you can to learn more about the child, right? And then if you're a good fit, you can use your active listening skills to restate, you know what you heard them say. So I heard you say that you really want your child to.

Joanne Kaminski

Just pick up a book on his own without it being a chore for him that he could just read it easily and effortlessly and that's exactly what I can help him do I can take him from reading these phonics that he's reading right now to reading these harry potter books is that something that you're interested in and they say of course yes I say are you ready to get started they say yes ninety nine point nine percent of the time they don't even ask me how much I charge. Mean don't them, I mean I, I send them the information.

Joanne Kaminski

I just say I'm send you a document on how payment works and all that stuff. I have that all written down for you. You can take a look at that and if you have any questions, you just let me know.

Shaun Morgan

That's awesome, I love that, but focusing on the child, child is really what matters and you know, money is a, an exchange of value. It's just I made something that's worth this much value and I want something that's worth that much value and for, I mean for me anyway and in, for most people I know, your child is the thing that you value most, so you're going to be willing to put a lot into your child,

Joanne Kaminski

Yes.

Shaun Morgan

you, you value your child, so you're going to value services that are gonna help your child succeed. And I think that that is huge, Okay, So uh. We're wanting to get started tutoring because you've convinced us that it's worthwhile, it's doable. What mistakes should a new tutor, be aware of and try to avoid?

Joanne Kaminski

Oh, I think, I think the very 1st mistake that every tutor thinks is they think they know exactly what the 1st steps are that they need to take. I need a business card, I need a website, I need a logo, I need, they're like thinking. There are four stages of learning, Okay, now when it comes to teaching and tutoring, you're already at the 4th stage because you've been doing it for so long, but when it comes to starting a business, you're at the 1st stage and that 1st stage is unconscious incompetence.

Joanne Kaminski

That means you don't know what you don't know, right? We pretend to know, we think we know. It's like you when you're a kid and you see your parents driving, you think that driving looks like this with your hands just kind of moving up and down, right? You don't realize all the other things that need to happen in order to really make that car go and to avoid getting in an accident, right? So that's that unconscious incompetence. That's where everybody starts. You don't have a choice.

Joanne Kaminski

Like you just don't get to skip it. Unless you were in business before, you just don't get to skip it. And and there are lot teachers that they want to bootstrap this thing all by themselves and they take a whole bunch of the wrong actions because they don't know what to focus on. 1st And so I mean really the next stage then is is conscious and competence. This is where you're like, this is where overwhelm comes in because you're like, Oh my gosh, I have to do. This and I have to do this oh my god and then I have to do I have to be on social media and I have to I have to create my own website and I have to have an ideal client I want to teach everyone I don't know who my ideal client should be and I don't know like wouldn't I get more students if I just like just said I could work with everyone or if I had these five different areas that I could tutor versus just saying one area like that's the that's the conscious incompetence you you're all of a sudden starting to become aware and then that next stage is conscious competence you now are starting to get to the phase and this is where my five thousand dollar a month people and more start to come on in because they you're like okay I got this I got this you know there might be some things I'm still learning here and there it's little rocky sometimes I got a bit a roller coaster student leaves I don't have a one coming in quite yet but we're get there right and then you get to the unconscious competence where you no longer have to think about it all of your students finding you automatically of all of the work that you've already done and it is just a dream so but we think that we can get to.

Joanne Kaminski

To stage four in the beginning. And we can't do that with anything. So that's why tell people like seek out our group, come join us. I have started something, that's brand new this year. It's called the game of tutoring because I think that honestly, starting your tutoring business should be fun, right? So I've it into a game and you start off by taking a quiz, and the quiz lets you know what stage of your tutoring businesss you're at. Some of you guys, if you're, you're in the teaching world and you're like, now I haven't had any students, you already know you're at level one and that's okay.

Joanne Kaminski

The goal of the game is not to get from level one to level six. The name of the game is to get from level one to level two or if you're level two to get to level three you win and that's the goal the goal is just to get to the next level and then you get to decide for yourself do I want to get to the next level maybe a yes or it might be a no you might be happy exactly where you're at so my level one tutors they're making between zero and one thousand dollars a month level two they're making you know up to two thousand dollars level three they're making up to four thousand dollars level five three.

Joanne Kaminski

Gon making up to five thousand dollars so you get to set those goals and then I have yes this is awesome you a checklist so you know exactly what to focus on and you don't focus on the wrong things in your businesss right out of the gate so you can get success a lot faster than I did and you can get success like karina just got from you know in seven months making now seventy seven hundred dollars a month with her tutoring businesss and you know i've got alexa in my community who she is making over ten thousand dollars a month in herr tutoring businesss and his max in making over ten thousand dollars a month and some of these tutors they've decided to do group classes some have decided to stick with just the one to one tutoring but every single one of these tutors they have gone through these steps in these stages and they are loving because the things we experience a one tutor and the things that I experience they're as level one tutor I don't know what stages to take in the beginning stages of my businesss by the time I get to level three i've got clients I'm.

Joanne Kaminski

I, I might even start feeling a little bit burnt out, and so I have, how do you, how do you stop yourself from burning out, how do I cut those right pieces? And by the time you get to level five, you're like passive income, please. I don't want to trade all of my time for money anymore. Could I add some passive income into this for my businesss and the answer is yes and I share all the different strategies for for those tutors on how to do that so I literally have a step by step guide with checklist of what do you need to focus on for any stage all you have to do is go to online tutor coach dot com slash game and you can play the game of tutoring with us.

Shaun Morgan

awesome. I love that. That's fantastic. You don't know. What you don't know is just the best tip. Because so many people start with a Businesss card, a logo and No, no, no, please don't. There's just.

Joanne Kaminski

No and then you end up with a pile of them the pile of them because because they're so cheap on vista print you're like no I can get four hundred of these for like thirty dollars yeah let's do it.

Shaun Morgan

I have a few piles and business cards over here. We don't need to talk about this. Don't do that, okay, What, what you need to work on is the stuff that's actually going to make your business start doing business. And if you don't know what that is,

Joanne Kaminski

Yes.

Shaun Morgan

then you need help, you need, you know, a group, you need a coach, you need to spend way more hours than you probably think, like learning, watching, you know, Youtube videos or or Joanne's Instagram real. Just trying to figure out the, the beginning stages Although I'd still recommend getting a coach, you just needed to spend that time understanding what you need to know before you can dive on in. And I, I think that's huge,

Joanne Kaminski

It absolutely

Shaun Morgan

okay. Another question for you, we're bringing in all of these, all this money of all these students, but you know, you're running a business which is not something that teachers learn how to do in school. Are there any tools or resources that you would recommend for managing the financial aspects of your tutoring businesss? That way, a teacher can just not have to worry about that as much.

Joanne Kaminski

Tutor Bird. Tutor Bird and you guys if you type in tudorbird.com/joanne-kaminsky you can get three months free of tutor bird um typically they give a thirty day but you can get a ninety day trial what tutor bird does is it automates all of those systems that you don't wanna be spending time on do you wanna spend a lot of time invoicing and collecting money and chasing your money down probably not you don't even know that's gonna be a thing yet but it's gonna a thing so you know you think in the beginning maybe I'll just go with venmo maybe I'll just do something like that no it's a terrible idea like run your business as a legit businesss you are online people are going to be able to track your money you are going to get found out this is no longer in under the table business this is not like driving to somebody's house grabbing the cash and then leaving and not having to you know take account into it so we do have to pay taxes just like everybody else's but there's a tax strategy that you can play as you increase your income with with your businesss so I have I've moved my businesss from an Lc to an S Corp.

Joanne Kaminski

And in the beginning it was just a soul proprietor and I probably still would be, no, no, I wouldn't be a soul proprietor. So um, but I mean in the beginning I, for a lot of years, like I was probably able to be a Sop proprietor for good seven years of my tutoring businesss and it worked fine. It was, it was the easiest businesss set up I could possibly get so you don't have to worry. Do I need to be a Sop proprietor and Ldc You are a Sop proprietor right now. You're just trying to get students like start there.

Joanne Kaminski

It's be the easiest way.

Shaun Morgan

I love that how you have a, I love how you have just a simple resource and and I love how you're encouraging people to run their businesss as a businesss from the get go. You don't want to start your business as a you know, weird, I'm taking cash here, I'm taking Venmo here, I'm taking, you know, this PayPal thing over here, whatever you're doing. And then I'm trying to figure what my finances are at the end of the year with my accountant or, you know, Heaven forbid. Not having an accountant using like Turbotax or something while you're running a businesss don't recommend that, start it as business. You know, have a software that doesn't for you take your payments,

Joanne Kaminski

Yep, yeah.

Shaun Morgan

that that's fantastic.

Joanne Kaminski

It creates automatic payments, so if you want to Bill automatically for the next month, it does it automatically, so you don't have to worry about not getting paid. If a student doesn't show on up, you get paid on time every time, even if they're on time.

Shaun Morgan

That's fantastic and if you're interested in that link you can find it in our show notes all of our show notes are at teacher money show dot com slash podcast so go to teacher money dot com slash podcast you'll be able to find all of our show notes there all right uh we are coming to the end of our time here. So, and you can, you can answer this next question more towards tutoring if you like, But I'm just wondering what is your number one tip for teachers to have a richer wallet, Classroom life?

Joanne Kaminski

you know I think it's just being like really mindful on on what you're spending your money on and what you want your money to go towards I found myself um I I played a game at one point in time with myself of every day I doubled my my money so I started off my day with ten dollars and the next day I had twenty dollars and the next day after that I had forty dollars and I had to try to spend all this money when I started really thinking about it as I got to the higher amounts what is it that I really want right do I want all of this little kind of junkie stuff like clogging up and and fluttering my life or are there some bigger things that I want do I want to go experience you know vacations and those kinds of things it's really taken a look then at you know in the beginning I had to actually start shopping at ald because we were on one income now at you know when I started my tutoring businesss and I still shop at all d because we just got used to it right and it saved me fifty percent of my my food Bill making those kinds decisions will help you then be able to use your money for the things you actually.

Joanne Kaminski

We want to usee them for instead of your money dictating what it is that you do, what you're gonna do with it, right? Like we always want to go after that instant gratification. What's make me happy right now, right, I go into Amazon, I'm like, Oh, that's cool, I'm buy it because it's so easy, right? It's like one click and you're done and and then all of a sudden it shows up like it's like it's a Christmas present on your, on your front door, you guys, they're not Christmas presents, you paid for them, okay, like think about that before you hit that button, track your money.

Joanne Kaminski

There's a great tool online, every dollar, I think it's called,

Shaun Morgan

Every dollar that Dave Ramsay's. There's a lot of them. Mint is another one. They've There's a lot of ways to track your finances. Every dollar is are great.

Joanne Kaminski

Yeah, track your money, no w what, tell your money what you want it to do versus your money telling you what you're able to do, right? And so right now I'm, we are saving money. So I've got three kids going through college, I have a wedding and I have a house, my dream house that I am purchasing. Before my daughter goes. My last daughter goes into college and she wants go to college in Florida, which is where I want to my house. So I needed to buy the house a year before she goes. So we can qualify for in state, tuition, so that's what we're, we're focused on right now is okay.

Joanne Kaminski

That's where the money is go right now. I can spend my time right now making money instead of spending a ton of money on things that I don't need unless there are experiences that I have saved for. Another thing is whenever you're, you're, you're spending money. Don't fall prey to like payment plans. You will always pay more on a payment plan. Do not pay unless you have the full amount and then move forward. If you don't have the full amount, say no, there's no. Reason why the poor need to keep paying more money than everybody else because we needed to be on a payment plan right it may mean that you have to put off what it is that you want for three six nine months so you can put the money aside I wanted an apple computer when I first started my tutoring business and my husband was completely against anything apple I mean he had a eight relationship with apple I don't know where it came from but he just had it I didn't I really wanted a mac air I was like you know what I'm up my own I was doing extra um I was doing some babysitting before school because I already had kids at my house and I had to take them to school so why not I was doing tutoring I took all my own cash and I bought my computer and was like you don't get to decide what I'm going to buy these are the you know here are the things that I want here are the things that I need to be able to run my businesss and you can choose to do what you want here's the rest of the money but it felt really good to have that money and just be like all right now I didn't go and put on my credit card and just buy it that would have ended up in an ar.

Joanne Kaminski

With him, I think it took me, I think ten months, and it was like me saving a hundred dollars a month to have that money so that I could get the nicer computer that I wanted.

Shaun Morgan

I love it. Those are all amazing, amazing tips. Track your spending is what I preach to the rooftops all the time. Track your spending and I love don't get on a payment plan, you're gonna spend more money. It's usually an obscenely larger amount of money if you're getting out to a payment plan, so please, please be wary of that. Okay, last question then for you, where can our teachers find out more about you?

Joanne Kaminski

yeah absolutely just go to online tutor coach dot com and you will find out more information about me some of the free resources that I have to support you guys and I obviously have other additional resources that like I have my businesss in a box and those kinds of things like that you can purchase if you want to but a ton of free resources out there to get you started because I know that a lot of us when we're getting started getting started on a budget right and we we are trying to bootstrap as much as we can but we also want to learn from people who've been there done that and are getting great success who wants to learn from somebody who's not getting good results or never had a tutoring businesss to begin with right don't listen to those people don't lett them con you into thinking they know what to do for tutoring it's a whole different world for us.

Shaun Morgan

All right. Well, thank you. J This is a lot of fun. I really appreciate you coming on the

Joanne Kaminski

Thanks for having me.