In this episode, I talk about a stage of business growth many tutors experience but rarely name.

I explore what happens when your business outgrows the version of you who first built it, and how identity influences your pricing, marketing, offers and boundaries.

I share signs that you are ready to refine your niche, simplify your services and strengthen your positioning for sustainable business growth.

Enjoy :-)

Sumantha

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👋🏽 Hello! I'm Sumantha McMahon, and I've supported over 100 tutors and education business owners.

As a teacher 'dropout' turned professional tutor, combined with my 20+ years as a business owner, I'm in it with you! Yes, I'm qualified too :-)

My training leans on tried-and-tested methods that are completely tailored to our niche.

Work with me to breathe life into YOUR definition of success:

#1 Bespoke 1:1 Mentoring

High-touch 6-month programme for tutors who want to make their business more lucrative, in a sustainable way for the future, while protecting the impact they make.

#2 The Tutors' Mastermind

The leading membership for tutors that combines tailored training (live and recorded), a community of like-minded business owners and exclusive discounts.

This podcast is recorded using Riverside. Sign up for your account here (free plan available)

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Sometimes, I share links to resources and apps that I recommend. They are all based on my experience - if I don't love them, I don't recommend them. In some cases, I earn a small commission for my recommendation, at no cost to you.

© 2024 Sumantha McMahon

There's a stage in many tutoring businesses that doesn't always get named or necessarily talked about very publicly because it's not really dramatic or chaotic as such, and it's the stage where the business is functioning well. You have changed. You're not quite the same version of yourself. Students are progressing. Income is steady. Your reputation is solid. Everything on the surface is actually going well. But when you look at the way your business operates, there's this kind of subtle sense that it was designed for an earlier version of you.

Now, I've experienced this more than once in my own journey. When I left the classroom and set up independently, I was focused on stability. I was focused on momentum and exploration. I wanted to prove to myself that this was viable, and I wanted that autonomy and freedom. So I built accordingly, and as the years passed, my confidence grew and I reframed the lens that I was seeing everything through because my experience deepened and my priorities evolved.

But I realised that parts of the business were still structured around the person I'd been at the beginning, the person who had just left the classroom. So that's what I really want to explore today. What happens when your business outgrows the version of you who built it, and how to recognise that without assuming that something has gone wrong or that something is going wrong.

For those of you who are new here, I'm Samantha and I'm a business mentor for tutors and for education business owners. I continue to run my own independent tutoring business. Alongside this, I run Upgrade Your Education Business, and the evolution I'm talking about isn't theoretical for me. It's something that I continue to navigate in real time, and I help my clients navigate as well.

When most tutors begin, there's a particular energy behind their decisions. You're building confidence. You're establishing credibility and your reputation. You're demonstrating that this can work, and sometimes you're having to prove that to yourself. In those early stages, you often prioritise things like availability and responsiveness.

You say yes because opportunities really matter and you don't feel safe yet to say no. You accept a range of students because that experience and exploration matters. You're figuring things out. You work evenings because that's when families are free, so it's the easiest way to set up. That version of you is focused on growth. It's focused on proof, evidence and stability, and that makes sense.

I remember so clearly how deliberate I was about filling my timetable when I first went independent, when I first left the classroom to be a tutor. I wanted to know that this was sustainable. I wanted to prove to myself I could match my income, and I wanted reassurance in the form of bookings and in the form of income. So the structure I created served me at that time.

The difficulty comes when your confidence increases and you almost pass that proving point because you feel more like an expert and your personal life evolves. Your priorities change, but the structure remains largely the same. So your identity really shapes how you design your business, and we don't often talk about identity in the tutoring space, but it influences so much.

If you still see yourself as someone who needs to prove their value, who needs to evidence that this is sustainable and viable, then you might price cautiously. If you still see yourself as that helpful teacher who must accommodate everyone, you may soften your boundaries. If you still feel grateful simply to be booked, you may hesitate to refine who you work with because you don't want to say no to people.

None of these are flaws. They're reflections of the stage that you are in. But over time, your identity will naturally shift. Maybe you are there. Maybe you're getting there. You accumulate experience and you see patterns. You recognise the results that you very consistently deliver. It's not a fluke. It's not a one off.

And yet the business can continue to reflect the cautious proving stage rather than the confident and experienced stage that you're actually in right now. In my own journey, there were moments where I realised that my standards had risen, but my structure hadn't quite caught up. It wasn't there to support those standards.

So I had more clarity about the kind of work I enjoyed, the kind of students that I really loved working with and the parents I liked working with, and that required some gentle adjustments. This is something I see so frequently in the tutors that I work with. They've matured professionally. They have a much clearer idea of what they prefer and what they don't want to do.

They have stronger instincts and they're usually right, but the business still carries this imprint of the earlier decisions and they can't quite figure out how to make them line up, and that's often where the friction begins. So there are some subtle signs that you're at the stage where that evolution is needed.

This kind of misalignment rarely presents as a crisis. It tends to show up as dissatisfaction or discomfort or feeling like you're not quite in the right place. A sense that things are working, but you're not excited and you're not feeling stretched or challenged.

You might notice that you're feeling slightly constrained by your own offers, by how you've designed things. You might sense that you're ready to be more selective or that you just want more, but you don't know what more really looks like. You might find yourself wanting to simplify, not offering quite so many things.

I have felt that way a number of times. I felt that way in my tutoring business where I no longer wanted to be everything to everyone. In fact, when I started, I was teaching multiple subjects. It didn't mean I cared less. It just meant that I was clearer and more confident about where I was most effective. I've experienced this in my mentoring work as well. I have streamlined what I offer.

Allowing that confidence and clarity to influence my business design required letting go of some earlier habits, and that can be uncomfortable because you're letting go of familiarity. If you're listening to this and you're recognising yourself in it, and you'd value thinking it through with someone who understands both the tutoring space and the entrepreneurial space, you're very welcome to book a call with me.

We can explore my one to one programme or my membership, The Tutors Mastermind, depending on what's right for you. Those conversations are reflective and considered. I hold space so that I can understand where you're at now and where you really want to get to, where the next evolution might be, rather than just jumping into changing things for the sake of it.

You'll find the details in the show notes or on my website, upgradeyoureducationbusiness.com. When we're thinking about designing for the version of you who you are now, when you begin designing around your current identity rather than your past one, the shifts can actually be subtle, but the impact can be significant.

One way this often shows up is narrowing your focus. You might narrow who you work with, the subjects you teach, even down to the exact exam board or paper that you teach for. You might refine how your offers are positioned. You might become clearer about the standards that you hold and be unwilling to compromise on those.

In my own business, I have revisited structure multiple times. As my mentoring work grew alongside my tutoring, I had to decide how each element fitted together in a way that was sustainable for me. It required thinking about capacity, energy, price, long term direction and structure in a more integrated way.

Evolving your business is part of evolving as a professional. It's not a sign that you've built the wrong thing. It's an acknowledgement that you have grown and you want your business to grow with you. As always, thank you so much for being here and for thinking deeply about how you want your business to evolve.