Are you a teacher? Or perhaps you went to college for education? If you’re in need of a little extra income and have considered doing education as a side gig, then you might be wondering how to get started in it.

Starting your own tutoring service can feel like an overwhelming idea, but it could be a great way to make some extra money on the side. If you want to start a successful side business in education, then here are the steps you need to follow.

Where Will You Be Running Your Business?
You need to decide if you’re going to make this an internet-only business or if you’re going to do it in your local geographic area. Once you decide the means in which you’ll be providing your services, you need to figure out where. In your home, go to other people’s homes, or do you have a separate location that you can use to run your business from?

If you are going to do it from your home or another location, then you will need to determine a reasonable area from which you think people will travel to you, and then market in only that area.

If you’re going to travel to people and do it in their homes, then you can open up your service area most likely. However, you’ll have to consider how far you’re willing to travel, factor in your traveling costs into your cost for your service, and the amount of time you’ll spend commuting - which might then mean you can take on fewer clients.

What Subject and Age Group Will You Teach
You will need to teach the subjects that you have the knowledge to teach and the age group that you’re comfortable teaching. There are going to be subject areas that are in higher demand and therefore can yield more clientele. However, if you aren’t confident in those areas, then it won’t be smart to teach those subject areas.

If young children are not your thing, you can always teach high school students or even college students and adults.

Determine Your Rates
You will need to do some market research to determine the going rates for tutoring in your area of the subjects that you’re interested in or qualified to teach. Call around to other education businesses in your area to find the going rate for their services.

Be careful not to price too low, but also not too high. You might want to go with a middle-of-the-road approach, but this also could depend on your actual qualifications. If you’re a certified teacher, you can use that to make a little more money, and if you have a degree in engineering you also might be able to use that qualification to get people to pay you more as you’ll be considered an expert in math.

Just be careful not to sell yourself short. If your goal is to make extra money, then you’re not going to be able to do that if you price yourself too low.

Promotion
Once you have figured out the where, the who, and the how much, you’ll need to get them in the door. This means it’s time to begin promoting your business. You can make up flyers, business cards, and other mailings to give out in coffee shops, libraries, and bulletin boards. Reach out to the local schools to see about getting referrals from them. Create a website and use other social media outlets to promote your business.

Administration
You need to keep good records for your business. Not only will you want to keep records of your schedule, student progress, and what you have worked on with your student, but you’ll also need to keep records for tax purposes. You’ll want to track how much money you make and how much your expenses are. You’ll also need to track who has paid and when things were paid.

Keep Improving
Once you get your business up and running, you’ll want to keep making improvements to it. Continue marketing yourself, but also continue educating yourself. What new tests are there for measuring success? What works and what doesn’t in what you have been doing with your students? Learn from your mistakes and constantly improve yourself and your business. Who knows, maybe one day this will be more than just a side business.