Reach the Parents

The students are the ones who might need the help, but the parents are the people you want to be marketing yourself to. Make sure you’re out there hustling, and you may even want to consider advertising on social networking sites and other places where savvy parents are. When you can reach the parents and let them know that you’re offering a solution to bad grades, they’ll be willing to pay very generously.

Make the Tutoring Useful

Don’t just show up and pretend you’re the student’s regular teacher. They need your help because the regular teacher isn’t getting through to them. Focus on asking the student questions about what they don’t understand, and you might find out that the student merely thinks differently than the way lessons are taught. Often a student simply needs to add some new ways of thinking about a subject, or have it explained to them in a different way. This will help the student understand better, and their grades will rise accordingly.

Follow Up Frequently

You don’t want to appear overly eager, but you do want to make sure your tutoring is having a positive impact. You can do this by sending a letter or email every few months and asking how things are going. In some cases, if you’re still tutoring in a few years, the same family may have another member that needs your services. Also be sure you ask for referrals, as this is a great way to be introduced to new customers.

Tutoring businesses are fairly easy to start, but there are a lot of ways you can make yours stand out from the pack. If you’ve got the urge to go into tutoring, you just need to remember to think it through and then follow through. Everything else is in the details.

About the Author: Corinne Dominski is the mother of two and knows how hard it can be to find qualified and effective tutors. Carefully interview everyone you’re considering and don’t make a final decision until you’ve found someone you can really trust.

The first thing you have to understand is that the profession of virtual assisting is very, very competitive. This is a career that has practically exploded onto the scene over the course of just a few short years, and as a result there are plenty of people out there who are trying to make their way as a professional virtual assistant. The good news is that the demand is high. The business has always been there in the form of small businesses, entrepreneurs, and even corporations, and they are really beginning to understand how beneficial it can be for them to have a virtual assistant on the payroll that they can trust.

One of the easiest ways to find clients as a virtual assistant is to make a website for your services. This will serve as a home base for all of the traffic that you attract through other methods, and will center your business plans around something tangible (so to speak). It’s incredibly easy to make a professional looking website these days, even if you have no experience with HTML or Javascript coding. Hosting costs for websites are often as little as $3 per month, and domains cost between $10 and $20, depending where you register the domain. Most will allow you to install something simple like WordPress as a content management system, and with this you can install free templates that will give your website flair and professionalism.

The next step is to get the word out, and this can be done by connecting with potential clients through social media networks. Facebook and LinkedIn are especially beneficial to freelance professionals, and if you can build up a rapport with some of the members of these sites you may find that most of your business comes through qualified referrals. Also, don’t be afraid to ask any of your clients to refer a few of their friends or business associates. You can even go so far as to offer a discount if they refer someone to you.

This builds a working trust and ensures that you attain clients who are serious about using your services. Bringing in organic traffic through Google or Adwords is great, but it leaves a lot of chaff that come to the site, look around, and in the end don’t want to hire you.

Michelle O’Barbara is a certified virtual assistant trainer and also she runs a Virtual assistant business. If you would like to know more about Michelle’s virtual assistant services or her assistants, please log on to her website.

Your freelancing profile is very similar to a formal resume. This will often be the first impression a potential employer gets of you and your skill sets. If your profile is found lacking, potential employers will likely move on to the next candidate.

The following are eight ways you can make your freelancing profile dramatically more appealing to employers:

1. Demonstrate your skills with past projects. Don’t simply list the skills you feel you are proficient at; instead, demonstrate your proficiency by providing a synopsis of past projects and how you were invaluable to the projects’ successes. If you have links to your projects, include them.




2. Quantify your past successes. If you were able to bring a past project in under budget or to completion ahead of schedule, put that information in your freelancing profile. Show potential employers how you’ve gone above and beyond a project’s call of duty.
3. Include your certifications. If you’ve been certified in a particular field or to properly use a specific piece of technology, tell employers about it! These certifications help build your credibility before an employer even talks with you.
4. Include a profile photo. Use a professional looking headshot, typically a photo in which you’re dressed formally. Employers like to have a sense of who they are going to do business with. Profiles that include a photo will attract their attention over non-photo profiles.
5. Be sure to include keywords. No matter what freelancing profession you’re in, your employers are likely to be looking for very similar keywords in a profile, such as certain skill sets and technology proficiencies. Be sure to include these in your freelancing profile.
6. Include references. When an employer hires a freelancer, it’s a risk. Often, the only chance they have to get to know you and your work is through your profile and perhaps a few short emails. Include references to past clients in your profile and you’ll eliminate some of that risk for the employer.
7. Write a creative title. The first thing an employer will notice on your freelancing profile is your title. A catchy and creative title is far more appealing than a boring one; however, you’ll still want to keep it professional.
8. Proofread, proofread, proofread. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, your freelancing profile is your chance to make a great first impression. A profile rife with misspellings, grammatical errors, and awkwardly worded sentences will make you seem less than professional and reflect poorly on your ability to provide quality work.

Randall Davidson, a co-founder of ProofreadingServices.Us, knows how hard it can be for freelancers to stand out among the crowd. He reviews the profiles of freelance proofreaders on a daily basis. Randall’s company offers English proofreading services that many freelancers use to ensure their profiles are as good as can be.

Finding good freelancing jobs, however, is not always easy. To make it as easy as possible, below is a list of my favorite freelancing sites, places that are excellent for finding high quality freelancing jobs:

1. vWorker.com – vWorker.com has more than 170,000 clients looking for freelancers for a variety of projects. For clients, vWorker.com offers a money-back guarantee facilitated by its AccuTimeCard system, ensuring clients are billed only for the hours freelancers actually work. That takes one of the biggest sources of risk out of freelancing, which helps attract top employers.




2. Elance.com – Elance.com is one of the top sites for freelancing jobs. There are thousands upon thousands of clients looking for freelancers across numerous service offerings, including programming, logo design and proofreading. They offer a paid-on-time guarantee for freelancers.
3. Guru.com – Guru.com is one of the longest running freelancing sites. They offer more than 8,000 freelancing opportunities monthly from clients around the world (which means clients distributed across nearly all time zones).
4. Freelancer.com – Freelancer.com boasts that it has more than three million employers and freelancers from more than 234 countries and regions. Job listings include, but are not limited to, opportunities in software development, writing, proofreading, data entry, engineering, accounting, legal services and sales.
5. ScriptLance.com – Founded in Toronto, Canada, ScriptLance.com offers freelancing services primarily to small, online businesses. ScriptLance.com focuses on freelancing jobs primarily in programming, Web design, writing/editing and marketing.
6. GetACoder.com – GetACoder.com services more than 200 countries. With thousands of satisfied clients, GetACoder.com offers a forum style job-posting service.
7. Jobs.SmashingMagazine.com – Smashing Jobs is a freelancing jobs website catering to Web design and programming, but featuring a variety of other freelancing positions as well. Freelancers deal directly with the client, and Smashing Jobs does not handle payment nor take a fee from the freelancer.
8. Jobs.ProBlogger.com – The ProBlogger job board is dedicated solely to freelance blogging jobs. ProBlogger does not manage these projects, nor guarantee freelancer payment, so due diligence should be done before accepting a position.
9. 99Designs.com – If you’re artistically talented, 99Designs.com may be just the place to find your next freelancing job, from logo and banner design to website design. Freelancers complete the required design, and the client pays for the one they like the best.

Randall Davidson knows that finding freelancing jobs is not easy. He was not only once a freelancer himself, but he also now interviews a number of freelancers every day, as a co-founder of ProofreadingServices.Us, a service that serves as an online proofreader. Among other clients, Randall’s company offers professional proofreading services to freelancers who would like to improve their job applications.

• Am I disciplined enough to work for myself?
• Do I have the confidence to market myself?
• Do I have reliable transportation?

In addition, for most small businesses you should get insurance. As the boss, you hold final accountability. Also, consider getting bonded to increase your marketability. Several of the businesses suggested here involve entering people’s homes. You are more likely to attract clients if they know your background has been checked, as it means you are accountable for anything that goes wrong on the job.

Each of the following suggestions has its pros and cons. Consider your personality, and your financial goals. As with any job, there will be tradeoffs when running a small business. Some people are willing to earn less if they have more flexibility to spend time with their families. Others are willing to invest significant time in growing the business to achieve outstanding profitability. Think about your own aspirations and constraints.

1. Rental Property Cleaning Service:

• Initial investment: Cost of cleaning supplies.
• The downside: Work is seasonal.
• The perks: Vacation communities are a fun place to be in your time off!
• Where to get more info: Contact real estate agencies that handle rentals.

2. Pet Care:

• Initial investment: Negligible.
• The downside: Working holidays and weekends.
• The perks: Working with animals and working outside.
• Where to get more info: National Association of Professional Pet Sitters provides background and tips for potential pet sitters.

3. Errand Service:

• Initial investment: None.
• The downside: Almost always on call.
• The perks: Getting your own errands done; lots of activity and interaction.
• Where to get more information: Read some helpful articles at http://www.ivillage.com/whats-first-step-starting-errand-service/7 before getting started.

4. Vending Machines

• Initial investment: Cost of machine, such as a drink vending machine.
• The downside: Cost of refills can fluctuate, making it difficult to project profit from vending machine sale of products.
• The perks: Flexible hours.
• Where to get more info: vending machine sale sites, such as www.1800vending.com provide lots of information about getting started.

5. Notary Public:

• Initial investment: Cost of training seminar, stamp and seal.
• The downside: Difficult to maintain as sole means of income.
• The perks: Can easily be managed as a second income.
• Where to get more info: Visit your state’s government website for licensing and seminar information.

Jessica writes about a wide variety of topics.  She especially enjoys writing about vending machines. You can learn more about Vending Machines at http://www.1800vending.com