May 17, 2010

Tutoring academy founder earns state honor

Originally published in salisburypost.com on 3/78/10

The U.S. Small Business Administration has named Beatrice Hair, founder of Salisbury Tutoring Academy, the North Carolina Small Business Person of the Year for 2010.Hair was nominated by Jenifer Flatley of the University of Phoenix Alumni Association.

Salisbury Tutoring Academy tutors students in all subjects, adult literacy and standardized test preparation. It specializes in working with students with Attention Deficit Disorder and dyslexia.

Winners from 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam will travel to Washington, D.C., in May to mark the annual celebration of National Small Business Week. One person will be selected as National Small Business Person of the Year.

To be honored, the person must have a substantiated history as an established business, growth in number of employees, innovativeness of product/service offered, response to adversity and contributions to community-oriented projects.

Hair spent eight years teaching elementary school. Her turning point occurred when a boy in her elementary school class had heart surgery and fell behind in his studies. She tried to tutor him, but her teaching and school duties consumed all her time. She knew there were many more students like him who could benefit from “one-on-one” tutoring.

In 1996, she opened Salisbury Tutoring Academy, operating out of her home and using classroom space at a church. She had a few teachers signed on as tutors. She outgrew that space and moved into the current location at 818 Corporate Circle, where she now oversees 25 teachers.

The company’s income has grown steadily as it streamlined business systems to create an efficient scheduling and automatic billing system. In 2007, Hair founded a sister company, Salisbury Tutoring Academy Franchise Group and has sold two franchises, with a goal of selling 1,000 nationwide.

To read more, click here.

Filed under: Business Practices,Small Private Practices

April 5, 2010

In Hong Kong, star tutors earn $1.5 million salaries

By Isabella Steger, originally posted on 3/2/10 in The Christian Science Monitor

In the Hong Kong cut-throat world of Chinese education, star tutors drive Ferraris and earn $1.5-million salaries.

Their confident faces smile out from billboards across the city. Their promotional grins are plastered across double-decker buses, subway light boxes, even on TV.

These are Hong Kong’s “star tutors,” accorded near-celebrity status for their ability to make learning fun and help students pass exams in everything from English to chemistry. Tutoring is common in Asia, where intense emphasis on grades and exams means parents are willing to shell out. More than half of Hong Kong’s youths get assistance outside school, a recent survey found.

The industry here is especially competitive and commercialized as tutors mimic the city’s showbiz industry to attract students and grab a share of the $460 million market.

“Those images of fame and stardom have been sustained and re-invented in different forms, resulting in tutors now packaging themselves as the superstars of the education sector in order to appeal to students,” says Gerald Postliglione, a professor at the University of Hong Kong.

Star tutors spare no costs on publicity. Even tutors who belong to one of the four major chains here must self-promote. But successful tutors can command hundreds of students. Those at the very top see their lives splashed across the pages of the city’s gossip magazines, revealing how many luxury cars they drive or properties they own. Some reports put their salaries as high as $1.5 million a year. One English tutor, Richard Eng, is famous for his love of Ferraris.

Critics worry that the emphasis on good looks and brand names sends youths the wrong message, but some tutors say the gimmicks are indispensable – and that the results are real. “The marketing is only for attracting students – we still need to deliver to keep the students coming back,” says Antonia Cheng, an English tutor at Modern Education, a major chain.

Ms. Cheng says she tries to make English fun, using interactive methods and discussing contemporary issues. Cheng gives out her phone number; many tutors also are on Facebook. “Teachers communicate in a way we understand, unlike at school, which we find really boring,” says Casper Chan, a high-schooler.

To read more, click here.

Filed under: Business Practices,Small Private Practices

March 5, 2010

Despite economy, tutoring service thrives

By Jeannie Nuss, originally posted 1/29/10 in the Boston Globe

Competition for jobs, college helps firm grow

Despite a poor economy that has led other businesses to scale back, a Lexington-based educational company has opened seven tutoring franchises in the past 45 days, and it plans to double in size this year.

Chyten Educational Services, which has 27 tutoring centers, will announce its expansion plans today.

The company has grown in spite of the recession, in part because of an growing number of students taking college entrance exams – nationally, a record 1.53 million students in the class of 2009 took the SAT, according to the College Board – and the appeal of franchises for the increasing number of unemployed workers.

“I think there’s a great opportunity for people who want to start their own business, who maybe lost their jobs because their companies were downsized,’’ said the company’s chief executive, Neil Chyten.

Chyten Educational Services, which began as an extension of Chyten’s long history as a private tutor, has grown from one educational center, founded in 1999 in Newton, to more than two dozen centers in 10 states, including locations in Pittsburgh and Lake Oswego, Ore.

Even as the US unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, some say Chyten’s expansion plans offer hope for entrepreneurs.

“Small business is the engine of the economy, and here’s a small business who is progressing despite the economy,’’ said Paul Waldeck, vice chairman of SCORE Boston, a chapter of a national volunteer counseling service for small businesses.

Chyten has partnered with Ultra Franchising – it’s the franchising arm of Minuteman Press – as its national sales agent. Nick Gimpel, vice president of the New York company, attributes Chyten’s growth, in part, to increased competition among college students fighting for spots at universities, the economic downturn, which has left people scrambling for jobs and learning new trades, and cutbacks in education that have created a market for more tutors.

To read more, click here.

Filed under: Academic Learning Centers,Business Practices,Commercial,Small Private Practices

February 28, 2010

Student Tutor Business Thriving at Carroll Senior High

By Ross Murray, originally posted 1/26/10 in the Southlake Journal

Ian Anderson is not your average high school senior, at least in some ways. He goes to class like everyone else, he does his homework and he socializes with friends at lunch at Carroll Senior High School. But this student, who truly loves to learn, has turned his passion into an unusual business for someone his age.

Carroll Tutors is a tutoring service Anderson began after hearing complaints from friends about various tutors they had who were not working out. It’s a common refrain, as most students and parents know. But for Ian, the cogs started turning and he decided to research local tutoring services.

It was then that he stumbled upon HP Tutors, a tutoring service started at Highland Park. The idea was simple: Juniors and seniors who have already taken a course can tutor freshmen and sophomores in the tougher and trickier subjects. He quickly contacted HP Tutors founder, Vic Ramon, and began a dialogue that led to Carroll Tutors opening as a franchise of the HP Tutors program.

Next, he recruited and hired 15 tutors, and then began getting the word out to students. These included Facebook announcements, flyers, e-mails and of course, word of mouth.

They have just recently taken on their first client, and at $35 an hour it’s quite a deal when compared to other tutoring services.

“Starting Carroll Tutors has really taught me to keep an open mind and to realize that opportunity is everywhere,” the young entrepreneur observed.

So far, Ian is still trying to identify the subjects that will be most in demand. At Highland Park, the subjects most commonly tutored arebiology, algebra, chemistry and geometry.

To read more, click here.

Filed under: Business Practices,Small Private Practices

May 29, 2009

Using best-in-class hires to boost business

By Joyce Hanson, crain’s new york business.com, originally published on 5/22/09

Paying staff four times the competition’s going rate may seem like a crazy formula for success, but the strategy works for test-prep firm Manhattan GMAT.

When founder Zeke Vanderhoek used his savings and a credit card to start his business in 2000, he earned $50,000 that first year. By 2008, the firm grossed $10 million because, he says, Manhattan GMAT hires only instructors who score in the 99th percentile of the Graduate Management Admission Test, and it pays them $100 an hour.

“The idea that teachers are a core part of the experience of learning is not an original idea. The only innovation is that we were willing to pay for it,” says Mr. Vanderhoek, a Yale grad and former Teach for America teacher at I.S. 90 in Manhattan.

He stepped down as chief executive of Manhattan GMAT in 2007 to start up a charter school in Washington Heights, where he will duplicate his formula by paying teachers a salary of $125,000.

Though no longer involved with Manhattan GMAT’s day-to-day operations, Mr. Vanderhoek remains on as “something like a chairman,” noting that his company is not really into titles. He had this same flexible attitude at the start when supplementing his teacher’s income by tutoring everyone from elementary school students to M.B.A. applicants. Over a few years, he received so many word-of-mouth referrals from GMAT test-takers that when he left Teach for America in 2001, his business was already up and running.

Manhattan GMAT has tapped into the recession-proof market of test-takers who want to ace the exam and get into the best business schools so they’ll be M.B.A.-ready when the economy picks up. Far from viewing high staff pay as an indulgence, the firm sees it as an essential.

Chief Executive Andrew Yang says the firm’s formula depends on three key variables:

Click here to read more…

Filed under: Academic Learning Centers,Admin/Management,Business Practices,Commercial

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