This blog post is going to be all about sales pipelines and why every tutoring business needs one in order to grow their tutoring business effectively.
Many tutors who are new to business or are in the early ventures of their tutoring business may not be familiar with the concept of a sales pipeline. This is why I thought it would be a valuable topic to discuss for many of you tutors out there who are wanting to consistently take their business to the next level.
When I first begin my tutoring business...I didn't know I needed a pipeline or even what it was.
It wasn't until I was in business for about 3 years that I learned what a pipeline was and how to actually implement it in my tutoring business.
The goal of this blog post: To teach you why you need a sales pipeline in your tutoring business, how to use a sales pipeline properly and then give you enough knowledge so by the end of this post you can take what you learned here today and implement that into your business today!
So, what is a sales pipeline?
A pipeline provides a way to visually see where your prospects are in the sales process.
This is important to know because everyone that comes in contact with you will be handled differently depending on the stage of the sales process they are currently in.
For example, if someone already knows who you are and what you do...You'll want to follow up and have conversations with them differently than if it's someone hearing about you for the first time.
What do you need to create an awesome sales pipeline?
There are four things that you need in order to have an awesome (and working) sales pipeline.
- Prospects (Potential clients): You need someone who is interested in what you have to offer.
- A sales process: What does your sales process look like?
- Automated follow ups: You need a way to automatically follow up with anyone who's currently in your pipeline. The most popular and effective ways of following up are through automated emails and SMS text messaging.
- Your revenue targets: What type of revenue are you trying to generate in your tutoring business?
Let's talk about prospects
A prospect (or lead) needs to come into your world somehow so they can enter into your pipeline. This could be from...
- A phone call
- A referral
- Facebook/Instagram
- Google searches
- Google my business
- Yelp
- Email blasts
- etc...
This is the first step to actually growing your pipeline because without having interested people...You don't have a business.
The typical sales process for a tutor
- Lead comes in - Prospecting Phase
- Contacting - Qualifying stage
- Lead doesn't buy - Relationship building stage
- Lead schedules first session - Closing stage
- Lead purchased tutoring - Getting paid stage
This is what your typical sales process should look like in your business. Depending on what you do or what tutoring services you offer...It could vary. But for the most part this process should fit most tutoring businesses.
Knowing your revenue numbers
Using your tutoring sales pipeline, you'll be able to identify which actions you need to take in order to meet your revenue goals.
Your sales pipeline will provide valuable insights to questions like...
"How many people do I need to add to my pipeline in order for me to make $X?"
Why is this important? Because it can help you make decisions in your business that actually DRIVE REVENUE.
For example: Let's say you have a very established pipeline and you know that you convert about 30% of your leads into actual paying customers. Great!
Let's say on average you make about $350 per paying student a month and you want to make $10,000 a month. That means you would have to have roughly 29 paying customers.
If you have a conversion rate of 30%...That makes the math easy! You'd need about 100 new leads to come into your pipeline to hit your revenue goals. Pretty cool, isn't it?
Now you can systematize the way you grow your business and make more money that you wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.
Automated follow ups
You should automate follow ups for each stage of your pipeline. By nurturing and building relationships with each lead you receive, you will increase the number of leads that become paying clients.
Automation helps move your leads from one stage of the pipeline to the next without you having to do any additional work.
This step is incredibly important and most tutors (or even business owners in general) don't have proper follow up automations in their business.
Usually from their fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of sounding too pushy or simply not knowing what to say, when to say it and how frequent to follow up.
(Luckily the Smarttutor system does all of this for you with the done-for-you email and text messaging templates that you get with the system - Sign up for a 14-day free trial today!)
Here is an example of what your sales pipeline might look like:
As you can see starting on the far left, you have your 'Lead In'. This is what populates when I get a call or someone inquires about your tutoring service.
Then you can push them down your pipeline (from left to right) moving them towards your goal...Turning them into a paying customer!
If you'd like to watch the pipeline in action with a LIVE example make sure you watch the video on this blog post beginning at 10:20.
You should now have an understanding of how important it is to have a sales process and a sales pipeline in your tutoring business. If you'd like to get started with a fully functional pipeline, automations and more in your business today...Grab a 14-day free trial to SmartTutor and let's get you setup today!
