In this episode, I share strategic insights for tutors on how to leverage quieter periods in their business to build a more sustainable and profitable future. She emphasizes the importance of intentional planning, making strategic decisions, and investing in thinking during these times.

Takeaways

• Quiet periods are opportunities, not gaps, for strategic growth.

• Focus on one strategic decision during quieter times to move your business forward.

• Invest in your thinking through reading, coaching, or reflection to make better decisions.

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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.

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© 2024 Sumantha McMahon

Today I want to talk about what the tutors who grow the fastest actually do differently during the quieter periods in their business. And I think it might surprise you. Because it's not about working harder or filling every hour with tasks, which I have a tendency of doing, but it's actually about being more intentional than that. If you're new here, I'm Sumantha McMahon and I work with tutors and education business owners who want to build businesses that are more lucrative and more sustainable. And today I want to get into what those tutors actually do differently, and how you can do the same.

Okay, so I'm recording this in June, right in the run up to the summer holidays. And if you're listening to this around the time that it comes out, then there's a good chance the quieter period is either just starting or it's just around the corner for you. Now, of course, summer isn't quiet for everybody, for every single tutor, but for a lot of people it is. So I want to say upfront that I'm not going to assume that that's the case for everyone. There are plenty of tutors who are really busy all year round. And if that's you, then file this one away for another time.

Your quieter moment will come, perhaps. And when it does, I think this would be useful. And when I talk about quieter periods, I don't just mean summer. I mean any natural dips, like the week after the students take their exams, for instance, and they move on, and when there's a gap when a cohort reaches the end of their journey with you. Or maybe around Christmas time, basically when the diary is lighter than usual and you suddenly have something that doesn't come around very often. Space. And that space is really interesting because it doesn't always feel the way we expect it to feel.

I know this feeling well. For the first few years of my tutoring business, I used to brace myself every year around exam season, because I knew what was coming. My Year 11 students would finish their GCSE season, they'd move on, and then summer would arrive. And with it would come that strange mix of relief, because I really needed the break, but also this unease that I think many of you will recognise. The relief is real. The pace eases, you can breathe. You remember what it feels like not to be rushing from one session to the next.

But underneath that relief is often something else. It's this kind of uneasy sense that you should be doing something with that time, that you should be productive. And if you don't, you'll be falling behind somehow. And that feeling makes complete sense because things have changed. Students have left. There's this kind of natural transition, and that business that felt really full and busy just a few weeks ago now has gaps in it and it's feeling a bit empty. And that can feel really unsettling, even when you knew it was coming.

And not to mention the financial dip — I used to feel so nervous about it every single year, until I decided actually, if I know it's going to come, then I need to prepare for it. Now, when this uneasy feeling happens because it's a quieter period, and you have these mixed feelings of relief as well, it's often a sign that the business has some fragile spots that the busy periods might have been masking. And so when it quietens down, instead of it feeling like an opportunity, it can actually feel like a problem. As I mentioned, I felt that for years, and what I'm about to share is what really changed it for me.

It's also what changes it for many of my clients when we have this conversation. Now there are three things that I see tutors do when things get quieter. None of them are wrong, not exactly, but some of them may be more useful than others. The first is to switch off completely. And I want to be clear here — if you have organised your year in a way where you can really switch off financially and logistically, then do it. It's absolutely the right thing to do. Rest matters. You've worked hard and you deserve it. But there is a difference between intentional rest and avoidance.

And sometimes what looks like switching off might be a way of just not having to sit with the bigger questions about where the business is going. I'm just putting that out there — it may not be the case, or it might be something different that you might be avoiding, but I always find it quite useful to make that distinction. The second is to fill the time with reactive, busy work. Tweaking the website, the thing you didn't find time to do when everything was busy, posting more on social media, refreshing resources or your branding. These things feel really productive, they keep the anxiety at bay, but without a strategic lens behind them, it's just movement rather than progress.

And the third one, and this one's really relatable, is to finally tackle the to-do list. You know the one — the list of things you've been meaning to do for months but could never find time for during the busy period. Send that email update, sort the landing page, sort out the admin that's been sitting in a pile since January. I used to do this a lot. I still do, but I try and do it a bit differently. I try to just choose one or two things. I used to do this when I was a classroom teacher too — every holiday I'd arrive with a stack of marking, a list of things to prepare, tasks I'd been putting off for weeks.

Sumantha (10:00)

So what do these tutors do differently? In my experience, it comes down to three things. The first is that they zoom out. So instead of diving straight into the doing, they take time to look at their business from a distance. What has been working? What hasn't been working? What do they want the next busy period to look like? What do they want to feel different by September? I often find it really useful to take a step back — I use ClickUp, a task management system that tells me what I should be doing pretty much every day, and I shuffle it around accordingly.

Sometimes it's not up to date, sometimes I haven't managed to do all of it, sometimes things have changed. So when I take a step back, I quite like looking at that big picture and tidying it up, thinking, okay, what needs refreshing? Rather than just diving straight into whatever feels most tempting to do. A lot of tutors spend a lot of time working in the business, and it's really natural, but it means they rarely get the chance to step back and look at it properly. The quieter period is one of the few natural windows where that becomes possible.

And the tutors who take that seriously come back into the busy period with clarity. They feel tidy. They don't feel like they're just running into the new academic year. And that's really difficult to do if you've filled that quiet period with just tasks, things you've been meaning to tick off the list. So take that big-picture thinking, take that step back, and ask yourself: what's working, what should I do more of, or what could I systemise and streamline? What do I want to feel different when the busy period starts? These are such valuable questions, because that's where the real change happens.

I'm not talking about big changes — our businesses are always evolving. I'm always refining, always reflecting, there's always something that doesn't feel quite right, and this is the time to really think about it. The second thing they do is they make one strategic decision. This has taken me years to master — not a list, one thing. One thing that they're going to change, improve, or implement before the next busy period begins. One thing that will make their business work better, feel better, or grow in the direction they actually want. Let me give you a quick example.

One of the one-to-one clients I worked with last year specialised in supporting students with independent school entrance exams within a particular school consortium — a group of schools. He was the only tutor, as far as he could tell, doing work in that community. Nobody else had positioned themselves there — that consortium isn't so well known, but it's well known to the people in that surrounding area. So he knew he had an advantage, he just hadn't fully used that opportunity yet. When summer arrived, he came to me with a plan: he was going to update his landing page. He said it needed a refresh.

And I said, well, what if you didn't do that? What if instead of updating the landing page — which still did the job, it was good enough — you spent that time strengthening your relationships within that school network, getting in front of the right people, making yourself known to the professionals inside that community who'd actually have students to refer to you? He did that, and he also did some paid ads to give his positioning a boost. By October, he had stopped needing to advertise. He'd put himself in front of the professionals within that network who had students who needed exactly his support and were now referring him because they trusted him.

Actually there wasn't anyone else for them to refer to anyway, so he just made himself known. And that was really valuable, because the landing page could wait — it felt like the most attractive thing to do, it's creative, it could have a little refresh, but it didn't need it. The relationship building couldn't wait. And knowing the difference here is everything. Now, the third thing is that they invest in their thinking. Zooming out and making that one strategic decision sounds straightforward, but in practice it can be harder than it sounds.

Without the right support alongside you, it's very easy to zoom out, feel overwhelmed by what you see, and then retreat back to the to-do list because at least that feels manageable. So investing in your thinking — whether through reading, a structured program, a mentor, a coach, or a peer conversation with someone who really understands what you're doing and building — is what makes the zooming out actually lead somewhere. It's what turns a good intention into a real decision. So if you're at a point where you know something needs to change, but you're not sure what or how, this is the kind of thinking I do with tutors inside my Bespoke One-to-One programme.

It's a six-month programme, so we have time to go really deep into where your business is going and how to build the foundations to get there. If you're seeking that guidance, this is your invitation to book a call — I'll pop the link in the show notes. But even if you don't work with me or another mentor or coach, choosing that one thing — and this is what I do with everyone, I'm really disciplined about it — I don't let people list all the different things they want to do. We do one thing, because by doing that one thing, it actually gets done, and we choose the thing that moves the needle. You can do that for yourself too, though it might take a bit longer.

You might want to bounce ideas around with someone, or try a good podcast or workbook, or create a structure for yourself — whatever it may be. Try to invest your time into thinking it through rather than being reactive. So before you dive into the to-do list, or switch off, or start posting more on social media, I'd love for you to sit with just one question: what do I want my business to look like when the next busy period begins? What would feel different? What would feel better? Thanks as always for giving me your time, and you'll hear from me on Wednesday.