Hi,
I've been silently following the forum for a while now, having finished reading MJ's books a few months ago. I'm in a bit of a strange position so please bear with me while I unload.
I own a tuition business in the UK but currently live in Spain. It's a long and complicated story involving Covid and my partner wanting to move back to open a salon but I am in Barcelona operating a London-based business.
To give a bit of background, my f-this moments have been multiple, each shunting me further along the road to entrepreneurship.
I left school at 16 and embarked on a three year crash course in poor-living. I developed something of a drug problem and hit rock bottom - jobless, homeless, and scrabbling around in the gutter. Since then it has been a slow climb back up.
At 20 I started working for a London-based property firm and quickly discovered that a glass ceiling existed for those without a degree. So, I left and went to uni. I stayed and eventually obtained a PhD, thinking that I would then teach at a university. But, I'm not much of a people-person, nor do I like being told what to do or think, and so I left and started to work as a private tutor. I have been doing this for more than a decade through various agencies. Around 5 years ago, I started working with two others in building our agency: things didn't work out as neither was prepared to put in the required time and I almost invariably had to do all of the work. Initially it wasn't too much of a problem as I felt that they balanced out my weaknesses (primarily that social situations and schmoozing don't come easily to me and I felt that they could bring in more new business). Over time, it developed into a problem and I fell out with them and left. I then started a new agency with another colleague two years ago. After a year, she got a new partner with loads of money and left to enjoy life (understandably). This happened in December of 2022. At the time, the agency as a whole was grossing around £100,000. Not a huge sum of money.
But, since I have been running the business alone, we are now on track to double the gross income to around £200,000. Of that, I earn around half through teaching, and the rest is earned by other tutors. I take an income of £60,000, the tutors are paid around £60,000, leaving gross profit of around £80,000. Again, not enormous numbers but things are getting better.
Now I feel that I'm at a crossroads. There is the potential for significant expansion (I've never advertised - it's all word of mouth referrals) and I'm putting the pieces in place for a better structure (proper website being built, referral program, CRM, invoicing etc). In short, everything is being professionalised.
The issue I have is trying to work out if the business is CENTs compatible. There are a number of issues:
1) In this industry, it's common for tutors to steal clients, particularly if the tutor is good. Often the customer's loyalty is to the person who comes to their house each week. I mitigate this by being actively involved with all customers, checking in and doing assessments etc, but this is time-consuming and absolutely not scalable as we grow.
2) Lots of tutors over promise and under-deliver. Frequently it's a side job and so tutors can be unreliable which reflects badly on the business. I try to mitigate this but cannot really address last-minute cancellations.
3) All referrals are generated by my work - tutors do the job but don't seem to be especially inspiring.
4) Clients can sometimes be reluctant to refer because they want an advantage over other parents. I specifically prepare children for elite UK schools (Eton etc) and so parents can be cagey about giving 'competitors' a referral.
5) Cannot control the outcomes of tuition - dealing with kids means you can do a really good job but they could still, on the day, not perform amazingly well.
6) I am working 7 days a week, often for 10-12 hours. I don't mind working hard but, using MJs analogy in Rat Race, I don't want to toil up a mountain where the rewards are lower than another mountain. I enjoy working (though not necessarily with this business - just in general I'm not a very relaxed person and happy work hard) and am not put off by long hours - I just want my financial rewards to reflect the work I am putting in.
7) I mostly don't like my tutors or dealing with their 'stuff'. One, after a month of evasive and sly behaviour, informed me he had a mental health issue (though also admitting he likes to party). I am somewhat hamstrung by a variety of laws surrounding equality etc and cannot get rid of him or inform the customers.
I should add that my motivation for excelling is that it will be the culmination of proving that I am as good as anyone else.
But, I am currently consumed with a great deal of uncertainty. I could plow on and strive to expand the business (while mitigating the above issues); I could hold my hands up and say perhaps I'm not the right person to drive forward the next stage of growth; or I could pivot into a business which would permit more explosive growth. I know that the current business will grow - the question is whether it is possible to achieve explosive growth and I'm thinking not. The reason for this is that I am selling quite a high-end product (relatively speaking) and expansion is based on maintaining goodwill, so quality control is really important but difficult to achieve when the product is people (and when they're really good, they become competitors).
So, here I am. Want to work hard and earn a huge amount of money but not sure if I am scaling the wrong mountain, or if I'm scaling the right mountain but without the right skills and in need of some nudging!
I've been silently following the forum for a while now, having finished reading MJ's books a few months ago. I'm in a bit of a strange position so please bear with me while I unload.
I own a tuition business in the UK but currently live in Spain. It's a long and complicated story involving Covid and my partner wanting to move back to open a salon but I am in Barcelona operating a London-based business.
To give a bit of background, my f-this moments have been multiple, each shunting me further along the road to entrepreneurship.
I left school at 16 and embarked on a three year crash course in poor-living. I developed something of a drug problem and hit rock bottom - jobless, homeless, and scrabbling around in the gutter. Since then it has been a slow climb back up.
At 20 I started working for a London-based property firm and quickly discovered that a glass ceiling existed for those without a degree. So, I left and went to uni. I stayed and eventually obtained a PhD, thinking that I would then teach at a university. But, I'm not much of a people-person, nor do I like being told what to do or think, and so I left and started to work as a private tutor. I have been doing this for more than a decade through various agencies. Around 5 years ago, I started working with two others in building our agency: things didn't work out as neither was prepared to put in the required time and I almost invariably had to do all of the work. Initially it wasn't too much of a problem as I felt that they balanced out my weaknesses (primarily that social situations and schmoozing don't come easily to me and I felt that they could bring in more new business). Over time, it developed into a problem and I fell out with them and left. I then started a new agency with another colleague two years ago. After a year, she got a new partner with loads of money and left to enjoy life (understandably). This happened in December of 2022. At the time, the agency as a whole was grossing around £100,000. Not a huge sum of money.
But, since I have been running the business alone, we are now on track to double the gross income to around £200,000. Of that, I earn around half through teaching, and the rest is earned by other tutors. I take an income of £60,000, the tutors are paid around £60,000, leaving gross profit of around £80,000. Again, not enormous numbers but things are getting better.
Now I feel that I'm at a crossroads. There is the potential for significant expansion (I've never advertised - it's all word of mouth referrals) and I'm putting the pieces in place for a better structure (proper website being built, referral program, CRM, invoicing etc). In short, everything is being professionalised.
The issue I have is trying to work out if the business is CENTs compatible. There are a number of issues:
1) In this industry, it's common for tutors to steal clients, particularly if the tutor is good. Often the customer's loyalty is to the person who comes to their house each week. I mitigate this by being actively involved with all customers, checking in and doing assessments etc, but this is time-consuming and absolutely not scalable as we grow.
2) Lots of tutors over promise and under-deliver. Frequently it's a side job and so tutors can be unreliable which reflects badly on the business. I try to mitigate this but cannot really address last-minute cancellations.
3) All referrals are generated by my work - tutors do the job but don't seem to be especially inspiring.
4) Clients can sometimes be reluctant to refer because they want an advantage over other parents. I specifically prepare children for elite UK schools (Eton etc) and so parents can be cagey about giving 'competitors' a referral.
5) Cannot control the outcomes of tuition - dealing with kids means you can do a really good job but they could still, on the day, not perform amazingly well.
6) I am working 7 days a week, often for 10-12 hours. I don't mind working hard but, using MJs analogy in Rat Race, I don't want to toil up a mountain where the rewards are lower than another mountain. I enjoy working (though not necessarily with this business - just in general I'm not a very relaxed person and happy work hard) and am not put off by long hours - I just want my financial rewards to reflect the work I am putting in.
7) I mostly don't like my tutors or dealing with their 'stuff'. One, after a month of evasive and sly behaviour, informed me he had a mental health issue (though also admitting he likes to party). I am somewhat hamstrung by a variety of laws surrounding equality etc and cannot get rid of him or inform the customers.
I should add that my motivation for excelling is that it will be the culmination of proving that I am as good as anyone else.
But, I am currently consumed with a great deal of uncertainty. I could plow on and strive to expand the business (while mitigating the above issues); I could hold my hands up and say perhaps I'm not the right person to drive forward the next stage of growth; or I could pivot into a business which would permit more explosive growth. I know that the current business will grow - the question is whether it is possible to achieve explosive growth and I'm thinking not. The reason for this is that I am selling quite a high-end product (relatively speaking) and expansion is based on maintaining goodwill, so quality control is really important but difficult to achieve when the product is people (and when they're really good, they become competitors).
So, here I am. Want to work hard and earn a huge amount of money but not sure if I am scaling the wrong mountain, or if I'm scaling the right mountain but without the right skills and in need of some nudging!
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