Tutors: Why Consistent Marketing Still Isn't Getting You Students

Sumantha 01:00 Maybe you've been putting content out for months and yet you feel like you're talking into a void. I'm Samantha McMahon and welcome to the Upgrade Your Education Business podcast. I specialize in working with tutors and education business owners who want to make their businesses more lucrative, but in a way that's sustainable and that actually works for their life. And when it comes to sales and marketing and all the challenges that come up around these things, I really believe that acknowledging those hard moments and having a response to them that genuinely works for you goes a really long way to building something that's both profitable and sustainable. So this is a conversation I really wanted to have with you. And by the end of this episode, I want you to walk away with some things that you can take action on or at least some new ways of thinking about how you're approaching this.

Sumantha 03:00 Or they spiral into self-doubt in a way that doesn't actually help you move forward either. So in this episode, I want to be really straight with you. Some of what I'm going to say might not be exactly what you were hoping to hear, but I'm saying it because I think it's what you need to hear and I think it will genuinely help you think differently about what to do when things feel hard and more importantly maybe what not to do. In my recent episode about five ways to attract students without marketing, I talked about something that's really foundational to what I want to discuss today. Marketing is a long game, and I don't mean that it will necessarily take you a really long time to see results. What I mean is that your results compound over time. So if you stop and start with it, if you have long gaps, if you're inconsistent, the reality is that the compound effect doesn't really kick in in the same way. To give you an idea,

Sumantha 05:00 LinkedIn, I would say, is probably my main platform. I post there every single week. It's where I make sales, where I network, where people discover me, and from there, they often might discover the podcast as well. I also use Instagram, and I've used it differently over the years. For many years, I was posting to the grid almost every day, and it really grew my followers fast. But what converts really nicely for me is my stories. So I do this in phases. Sometimes I focus on growing the account and I really ramp up grid posts, but all the time I'm focusing on connecting with the people who already follow me through my stories and I do this multiple times a week. And then through those stories and on the grid, I share things related to my podcast as well. So can you see how a little ecosystem is forming here? LinkedIn, podcast, Instagram, they each make sales for me independently,

Sumantha 07:00 that also go to Instagram and my Facebook page. I'm not making a special effort on TikTok, but that's not because TikTok isn't a great platform. It could absolutely be brilliant for my business. But the way I think about it is I think about what's sustainable and effective at the same time. Do I need to add anything extra to my mix right now? That's the question that I'm always assessing when I have this temptation to try something new. And the answer is no. I mean, I could run challenges. I could add more platforms. I could be doing loads of different things. But I have chosen a small suite of things that can work like an ecosystem. And because I've been consistent with those things, because I've only been able to be consistent, because what I've chosen is actually sustainable, means that the compound effect happens. And that means that I now have absolute confidence.

Sumantha 09:00 That's not me saying that either of those options are wrong. It's just what works for me right now. And it's manageable because I'm not trying to be everywhere all at once. Now I'm noticing something with the tutors that I work with and I think it's really worth talking about because it's kind of what's triggering this whole conversation. A lot of them are wrestling with delegation. They want to delegate, they really do, but there's this kind of hesitation there. Sometimes it's about losing control. Sometimes it's the worry that it will take someone longer to do something, so it just feels easier to handle it yourself. But here's what I know, and I know this with confidence. That upfront time investment in teaching someone else how to do something, whether that person is a person or whether if you're using a tool like AI, that time investment really pays off. And it pays off really fast because the thing to consider is that your time is a resource as well. And when you're a business owner, you have to manage that resource. I'm also seeing tutors dilute their attention across multiple projects or multiple arms of their business at the same time.

Sumantha 11:00 And there's nothing wrong with that as such. It's part of what you deliver, it's part of who you are. But when you do that, the part that gets neglected is thinking like a business owner. And when you think like a business owner, your time is a resource. You manage that resource. You make intentional decisions about what you do, what you delegate, and what you will let go of. So here's what I want you to think about. You're going to have so many opportunities around you. New platforms, new content formats, new ways to reach people, challenges, webinars, collaborations, you know, the list is endless. But trying to do all of them is exactly what creates that feeling I described at the start of this episode, that sense of being overwhelmed, of investing effort and not seeing the return, of wondering why it's working for someone else and not for you. The answer is often not that you're doing the wrong things. It's that you're doing too many things.

Sumantha 13:00 And I talked about this in that episode about five ways to attract students without marketing. Those activities, things like networking, having conversations, showing up in your community, they speed up the effect of your marketing. They build relationships, but they also enrich your marketing. Let me give you an example. Let's say I'm at a networking event. Someone is really interested in working with me or they've just been really interested in our conversation. When they go home, they might connect with me on let's say LinkedIn, they might Google me and find my podcast. All of that digital presence, all of that marketing footprint is working for me. But the effect of it is sped up because of that relationship we've already started to build. So posting and ghosting doesn't work anymore. It might have done once, but it doesn't now. You have to participate. You have to be commenting, engaging, getting to know people. And yes, I know,

Sumantha 15:00 Now it stood out because all the other posts that I happened to be seeing at that time were either very hard-hitting or controversial or where they're sharing top tips to achieve X, Y, Z and this post interrupted the pattern. So I went to my scheduled posts and I asked myself, what pattern can I interrupt? Is there a post that I've written here that I could soften? And I found one and I softened it. That's the work, that's the refinement because social media moves fast, trends emerge, what resonates shifts, you have to stay on the pulse of what's happening. And honestly, if you want to stand out, jumping on every trend doesn't really make sense, doing what everyone else is doing doesn't make sense. But staying aware of what's happening and being willing to adapt your approach, that's pretty essential. Now I know you're still wondering, how am I going to squeeze this in? How are you going to do all of this?

Sumantha 17:00 So it's not that this approach adds masses of time. It actually might not add any extra time really at all. It's just about being smarter with the tools and the people that you already have. So when things feel hard, when the results just aren't there yet, the question isn't whether you should keep going or whether you should be trying new things. The question is whether you're going about it in a way that's actually sustainable, whether you're trying to do too much, whether you're holding on to work that could be delegated, whether you're showing up consistently enough for that compound effect to actually kick in. Because if you get those things right, the results will follow, not overnight, but they do follow. And they follow in a way that feels real and sustainable. That's the business you're building. So here are seven actionable steps you could do right now. Okay? If you need to get a notepad, if you need to

Sumantha 19:00 And next, build in a refinement practice. This doesn't have to be a formal time block. Simply save content that resonates with you as you come across it. Screenshot it, bookmark it, whatever works. When you're creating new content or you're briefing your VA or AI tool, dip into that collection. It becomes your reference bank, your swipe file for what's landing right now in your space. Next up, add relationship building activities to your marketing plan, networking, community engagement, genuine connection, not as extras, but as core parts of your strategy. And explore what this looks like for you. For some people, it's networking events. For others, it's being active in a community where you feel safe and comfortable. I have clients who, for various reasons, don't feel comfortable at networking events or simply can't fit them in. So instead, they use the community in the Tutors Mastermind membership really well to build those genuine connections. The shape of it depends on your personality and your capacity and time. But the principle is the same. Build genuine relationships alongside your marketing. Find the way that feels sustainable for you. The next one is to analyze what has actually worked for you in the past, however small. Repeat and refine those things rather than constantly chasing new strategies. That's your evidence to build from.