Freelance Online English Teaching with LessonSpeak

There are three main physical pieces of equipment that you will need to acquire to teach English online.

1. Reliable computer & keyboard

   1. Both Windows and MacOS works fine but Windows is easier to troubleshoot in most cases. I use a Lenovo Thinkpad L380 Yoga because it is reliable, sturdy, small, and has a long-lasting battery. I bought it directly from the Lenovo website when it was on sale.

      
      

2. Webcam

   1. If using a laptop, you should already have a built-in webcam. If not, you will need to buy one. I use my built-in webcam.

   
   

3. Headset with a good sound-canceling microphone and USB or bluetooth connection. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you have a good microphone. Your clients will associate bad sound quality with a bad lesson and you don't want that.

   1. I use a Logitech H390. It is both reliable and inexpensive.

      • Amazon link: amzn.com/B000UXZQ42
        

You must acquire all three in order to succeed as an online teacher.

Here is a list of the (free) software that you will need to teach:

• Web browser(s)

  • I recommend Chrome and/or Firefox. It is good to have more than one for testing purposes and in case one does not work properly.

  • Link: https://www.google.com/chrome/

    
    

• Zoom

  • Conferencing software for screen sharing and webcam sharing. I prefer Zoom to Skype or Google Hangouts due to simplicity, functionality, and reliability.

  • Link: https://zoom.us/download

    
    

• OBS Studio

  • Screen recording, equipment testing, and measuring progress.

  • Link: https://obsproject.com/download

  
  

You will need to have a professional email. If you don't already have a professional Google email, you will need to make one.

1. Gmail: your clients will see your email so use a professional name; examples:

   1. firstname.lastname###@gmail.com

   2. firstname.lastinitial###@gmail.com

   3. firstinitial.lastname###@gmail.com

2. Using your professional Gmail account, also create an account on Wordpress.com

Use the attached files and lecture video as the step by step guide to making your first landing page. We will be creating links to your assessment page and payment processing in the proceeding lessons.

Your landing page is the link that you will be sending to all your potential clients. All of your client traffic will funnel into this page.

The purpose of your landing page is to:

• Answer your potential client questions

• Qualify your leads

• Convince them of your service

• Allow clients to give you their money

• Demonstrate authority

• Allow users to contact you through a contact form

What you will need:

• Your Wordpress login

• Attached files

All the steps to making your landing page can be found in a proceeding lecture.

It is important to have terms and conditions in order to reduce issues in the future. You will have a separate page for your terms and conditions, linked in the assessment form page. This page gives you permission to record all of your lessons using OBS but you will still need to ask their permission to post them publicly. Here are the terms and conditions that you can use on your page:

Terms & Conditions

By scheduling a meeting, you accept the following terms and conditions:

Class cancellation

All cancellations need at least 24 hours notice. If you cancel with less than 24 hours notice, you lose your paid-for class. If a teacher cancels with less than 24 hours notice, you get a free class.

Class length

Each 1 hour class includes a 45 minute live conversation class and a 15 minute discussion period.

Class validity

Paid-for classes expire if not scheduled within 6 months of purchase date.

Technical issues

If you have electricity or technical problems from your side, we can not be responsible if you miss a class or part of a class.

Documenting

All resources are available online. Classes may be recorded. Classes may be publicly displayed with the student’s permission.

Privacy Policy

We share none of your information with anyone for any reason.

All the steps to making a Terms and Conditions page are outlined in a preceding lecture.

Payment processing can take a lot of time and you want to make sure that it is as easy as possible for clients to give you their money. It is important to automate this as much as possible.

The tool that I use to automate my payment processing is Square.

Other tools that work very similarly are Stripe and Paypal. I used to use Paypal but it was giving me issues so I switched to Square.

What you will need:

• Bank account information

• Your professional email

All the steps to making your payment processing page can be found in a proceeding lecture.

This video outlines the steps you'll need to take to make your landing page, terms and conditions page, and scheduling tool.

Your landing page will include a button for a "free assessment" that will lead your client to a questionnaire page on your site. This includes a set of questions that they must take the time to fill out, further qualifying your client.

The purpose of this questionnaire is to:

• Further qualify your clients

• See if they have a budget for lessons

• Help you understand their level of English

• Help you understand why they want lessons

• Help you understand their current amount of exposure to English

• Help you understand their goals

• Prepare the student for the first meeting

• Get their confirmation that they accept your terms and conditions, which will be linked in the questionnaire

Steps to setting up a questionnaire page:

1. Make a new page on your site

2. Add a text box form for each of the following questions and make them all required:

   1. Page title: "English Lessons Placement Test"

      1. First and last name

      2. Email

      3. Do you have a budget for lessons?

   2. Section 2, titled: "Fill in the blanks"

      1. ________ a meeting in the office today.

         (there are, there, there is)

      2. ______ at Bordeaux University this year.

         (I study, I am studying, I studied)

      3. ______ tell you tomorrow.

         (I, I will to, I'll)

      4. My brother ______ .

         (is 30 years old, has 30 years old, has 30 years)

      5. He ______ already arrived, I can see his car.

         (must have, must be, had to)

3. Add a message form for each of the following and make them all required:

   1. Section 3, titled: "Short answer"

      1. Describe a national celebration in your country (the date, what do people do, etc.).

      2. Describe what you're currently doing in your life (work, studying, hobbies, sports, etc.).

      3. Describe a plan you have for the future (next holiday, professional project, personal meeting, etc.).

      4. Why do you want to improve your English?

      5. How would you describe your current level of English proficiency and where would you like to be?

      6. How often do you practice writing, reading, and speaking in English?

4. Add a Header with the following text:

   1. You will need to come prepared for the lesson.
      Full terms and conditions can be found here. (will be linked to the terms and conditions page)
      Please check these to accept the following terms:

5. Add a checkbox form for each of the following and make them all required:

   1. I will have a headset for the lesson

   2. I will have tested my equipment

   3. I will be ready to join the video call at the scheduled time

   4. I understand that I may receive future emails in relation to English lessons

   5. I understand the terms and conditions

When you receive a new inquiry, you will receive an email with the responses to these questions. At this point, you will reply with a message thanking them for taking the time to fill out the form and a link to your Calendly scheduling tool where they will be able to set up their trial lesson.

Scheduling can take a lot of time and in order to reduce the back and forth that happens between each client, you'll want to automate as much as you can. The solution to this are two tools:

• Google Calendar

• Calendly

In this lesson, I will give you an overview of how I use these tools to automate scheduling. It is important to sync these two tools and keep your calendar up to date in order to minimize double booking.

I highly recommend that you use Google Keep as a tool in order to have easy access to your links. This method of teaching is all done digitally through links in order to make it as easy as possible.

There are three links that you will be using, in this order, when you acquire a new client:

1. Landing page link

   • When you get a new student inquiry

2. Calendly Link

   • When you want to schedule a meeting

3. Zoom link

   • When you need to meet with the student

Getting new clients involves putting them through an acquisition process. This process is called the client funnel.

Now that you have your landing page, the questionnaire, and scheduling tools, you can start putting clients through this funnel.

The attached image gives a visual representation of what it may look like. At any point in time, you may have a client that gets filtered out of the funnel. They may not make it through, meaning that they are not a good potential client. Here is how your client funnel works:

1. Reach out to new clients via marketing

   1. Clients who are truly interested will read up on what you have to offer. Your marketing efforts will direct your client to your landing page.

2. Landing page

   1. Send your potential client the link to your landing page. A client will reach this point and see what you have to offer. Your landing page has a "free assessment" button, known as a call to action, where they will be directed to the next step in your funnel.

3. Questionnaire

   1. In order for a client to get a taste of what you have to offer, the free trial, they will have to demonstrate interest. This is done in the form of the questionnaire.

4. Free trail lesson

   1. Once a client fills in the questionnaire, you will reply with a confirmation message and your Calendly link. Once they schedule it, you will confirm with the link to your Zoom meeting room. It's good to send them a reminder 10 minutes prior to the meeting. This is where you will put them through the final part of the funnel, the trail lesson. You will ask them questions and convert them into a paying customer. You will do a selection of activities from a full lesson, without completing the full lesson. You will show them your rates and ask them, "when would you like to have your first lesson" and "how frequently would you like to meet?". Ask them to prepare their credit card and to navigate to your payment page. Finally, ask them, "which package would you like to choose?" Make the sale on the call. Although the lesson is 30 minutes, carve out 1 hour to accommodate for the logistics of closing the sale.

5. A paying customer

   1. Once a potential client becomes a paying customer they have made it through the funnel! It is now your responsibility as a teacher to deliver on your promise (the service) and teach the lessons. Once they've exhausted the package of lessons you will have to retain them by having them sign up for another package of lessons. It is significantly easier to retain a current customer than it is to find a new one.

6. A returning customer

   1. An old student may have stopped taking lessons for whatever reason. You can always reach out to them via email and offer a discount to entice them to sign up again. These customers have already been qualified and do not need to go through the funnel process again.

All of your lessons will take place on Google Docs. Using this tool, you can easily keep track of the progress that you've made with your client, know which lessons you've already used with this particular client, and share the material with them.

Every time you get a new client, you will need to make a new document for that client. You will be taking these steps for each client.

Steps for setting up your lesson space:

1. Verify that you are signed into your professional Google account

2. Navigate to docs.google.com

3. Create a new document

4. If the label is not visible, click the small arrow at the top right corner to display the menus

5. Label the document "lessons with (student name)"

6. Click the blue share button at the top right and click "get shareable link" on the pop-up window.

7. Click the drop down menu with the text "anyone with the link can view" and select "anyone with the link can edit"

8. Click "copy link"

9. Send link to client via email

10. At the top of the page, list your Zoom link and your Calendly link so that your student always has access to those.

11. Below the links, start each lesson by typing "lesson #, (month) (day) (year)".

12. Open your lesson folder, select all the images, click and hold on the first image, and drag the images right onto the document right below the date that you just entered.

Tips:

• Hide the menus by clicking the small arrow in the top right to maximize your screen real estate.

• Docs will automatically add a page break between pages. You should remove this by double clicking on the space between the two pages.

• I recommend using your arrow keys to navigate through the document once the images are uploaded as clicking will usually select the images and if you start typing then the images will be replaced with text.

• If you have a lesson with a returning student, put some white space in the document by hitting enter a few times then typing "lesson #, (month) (day) (year)" right below the links at the top. You will be pasting the images in this white space so that you don't have to scroll down a (eventually) long document.

All lessons use a standardized rubric to help you choose the appropriate lesson material for your clients. Please refer to the attached rubric sheet for reference.

Each lesson has 10 to 16 image files with at least 3 types of activities.

Your lessons include a selection of the following activities depending on difficulty and topic:

• Introduction: 0 -10 min

• Vocabulary: 5 – 20 min

• Reading: 5 -20 min

• Dialogue: 5 – 20 min

• Matching: 5 – 20 min

• Questions: 5 – 20 min

• Role play: 5 - 20 min

• Pros and cons: 5 – 20 min

• Fill in the blanks: 5 – 15 min

• Sentence structure: 5 – 20 min

• Describing pictures: 5 – 20 min

• Open discussion: 5 – 20 min

  
  

The goal of a lesson is to help you clients improve their:

• Conversational skills

• Confidence

• Grammar

• Pronunciation

• Reading

• Vocabulary

It is important that your students associate a face to the service so you want to be present, appear professional, and be prepared.

Have a clean workspace. Although your students won't see your desk, it can distract you and affect the quality of your work.

What students will see is your screen. Clean your desktop on your computer by removing all the icons from your desktop (except the trash).

Set up your desk so that there is nothing distracting behind you. A blank wall works perfectly.

In order to look good, you'll need proper lighting. You'll need 2 or 3 light sources of various brightness at varying distances in order to eliminate shadows and not appear blown out. You'll have to adjust this according to your specific lighting conditions.

Teaching is the most straightforward aspect of this process but it is not to be neglected.

Preparing for a lesson:

• Don't be tired

• Have water handy

• Do a quick equipment test

• Prepare the lighting in the room

• Men: groom your face

• Women: use light makeup

Tips:

• At the end of each activity, ask if they have any questions.

• Students want to have a conversation but if they make a mistake, correct them.

• You will have to interrupt them sometimes.

• Type out their mistakes then show the corrections. Example (egg-zam-pal)

• Ask them questions, get them talking.

• Identify the appropriate time to dig deep and take it.

• Agree/disagree with what they say, maybe explain why.

• Make a joke every once in a while. Everyone loves a laugh.

• Talk about recent events.

• Ask them about their opinion on things.

• Intentionally pause right before you blurt the answer. Hint towards the right answer. Give them time to respond.

• Ask them to clarify or rephrase their statements.

  • “What do you mean by that?”

• Rephrase their statements in a way that you would say it.

  • "What I would say..."

  • "The way I'd phrase it…"

• Watch the clock. Your time is not free. It’s ok if you don’t finish all the activities in a lesson.

• Get them to talk.

• Don't be afraid to insist on sticking to the material if they ramble.

• If not already included in the lesson, you can extend a lesson by asking the student to construct a sentence from each vocabulary words.

• Since you'll be sharing your screen, go into the setting for your computer and make your cursor bigger so that the student can see it.

Each session has a selection of various activities and will last approximately 45 minutes total. Below is a list of what actions a student takes and which activities fit into each category:

1. Copying: repeating from examples

   • (Vocab, reading, dialogue, role play)

2. Comparing: implementing feedback

   • (Reading, vocab, dialogue, matching, pros/cons, fill in the blank, sentence structure)

3. Compiling: putting together from parts

   • (Reading, vocab, dialogue, matching, questions, pros/cons, fill in the blank, sentence structure)

4. Computing: basic conceptual comprehension

   • (Reading, vocab, dialogue, matching, questions, pros/cons, fill in the blank, sentence structure, describing pictures)

5. Coordinating: conceptual analysis with another

   • (Reading, questions, pros/cons, open discussion, describing pictures)

6. Creating: constructing unique concepts and ideas individually

   • (Questions, sentence structure, describing pictures, open discussion)

Most clients will see an immediate boost in their confidence after just 2 lessons and will be very excited. When your clients tell you that your lessons helped their English, you should take this opportunity to ask for a written testimonial! A video testimonial is ideal but harder to convince them to do. You must ask for their consent to upload the video testimonial online. Using OBS, you can tell them that you're recording the conversation and ask them some of the following questions:

• How do you feel after taking a few lessons with me?

• Have you noticed an improvement after taking a few lessons?

• What do you like most about this style of teaching?

Once you have a video testimonial, you can upload this on Youtube and link it on your landing page!

Kaizen is a concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. Kaizen (改善) is the Sino-Japanese word for "improvement". Kaizen also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain. It has been applied in healthcare, psychotherapy, life coaching, government, and banking.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen)

OBS is your best friend here.

Before each lesson, hit record.

At the end of each lesson, hit stop.

Put time aside and watch your recorded lessons. Take notes on how you performed. Only in doing so will you understand what you should do differently in order to improve as a teacher. Watching an old lesson may be cringey but that is how you become a great teacher.

Clients don't like it when they get automated responses; they can tell when a bot responds to their questions. You will get the same handful of questions from your clients and you will have to answer them while also directing them to your landing page. Your landing page should answer most of your client questions.

When you start marketing on other platforms, you will get messages from potential clients through many mediums. Communication with your clients can happen through any medium but in order to maintain professionalism and reduce confusion, your Gmail is the best tool for this. Maintaining communication through your Gmail will also make it easy to find old messages by using the search function and will keep a paper trail of all your communication. Your assessment form will funnel your clients into this form of communication.

You can easily tell how serious a client is about taking lessons based on what questions they ask you. Your landing page should answer most of their questions so if they ask you any of these questions then they haven't taken the time to look at your landing page.

Here are some of the most popular questions that your clients might ask you:

• How much do you charge? (or worse, do you teach for free?)

• How do I pay?

• How long is a class?

• What are your policies?

• What do I need to start taking lessons?

• How do you teach?

I recommend answering a question or two then directing your potential client to your landing page.

An example situation:

Client: How much do you charge?

You: Depends on the package that you choose. Have you had the chance to take a look at my website?

Client: No. How do you teach?

You: My lessons are one hour long. Please take the time to look at this page, it should answer most of your questions. If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to message me! (insert emoji(s)) (insert landing page link here)

At this point, if your client keeps asking you questions then they are wasting your time. Part of the process of qualifying your clients is that they are interested in your service and if they haven't taken the time to look at your page then they are not serious about becoming a client. You can either insist that they look at the page or ignore them. These kind of people almost never convert into a paying client.

Teaching as a freelance teacher involves making the sale, a very important step in the process. Here are the steps to closing a client:

1. Identify potential clients

2. Convince them of your service

3. Convert them into a paying customer

The first two steps are handled by your funnel process but you will have to convert them into a paying customer during the trial lesson. Customers may be hesitant to take lessons for whatever reason so you will get many objections. Here are some of the most popular objections and responses you can give.

• Your classes are too expensive!

  • My services are not cheap, that's because you get what you pay for.

  • What else have you tried to improve your English and did that bring the results you were expecting? (Highlight how difficult it is to find a live conversational English teacher). They may reply by saying that they've tried reading, writing, duolingo, etc. Follow up with, "but how often do you speak English with a native speaker and get feedback?"

  • Exceptional English skill are essential to being successful in many other aspects in life that will bring you more money. For example, it will help you land that well-paying job.

  • You are investing in yourself. The value of this is priceless.

  • By taking these classes, you're investing in yourself. What is more valuable than that?

  • Break it down; for the price of one lesson you can forego:

    • How much is an average Starbucks drink? 3 Starbucks drinks

    • How much do you pay for lunch? 2 lunch outings

    • How often do you go out drinking and how much do you spend on average? 1 night out drinking

    • If you were a smoker, how much would you pay on a packet of smokes? A packet (or two) of cigarettes

  • If these rates are too expensive, how much would you be willing to pay? You can give them a discount for their first couple of lessons through a coupon code on Square if that means that you'll make the sale.

    
    

• I don't have time for classes.

  • You had enough time to get through my process and sign up for a trial lesson... What's changed since?

  • Classes are just one hour long... Follow it up with:

    • How much time do you spend browsing social media per week/day?

    • How much time do you spend watching TV per week/day?

    • How much time do you spend indulging in your vices per week/day?

      
      

• I need time to decide.

  • It is important to get your client to pay at the end of the trial lesson. You will pull up your payment page and ask them to navigate to this page to choose a package on the spot. Ask them to prepare their credit card and decide which package is best for them. At this point, they may say that they need time to think about it.

  • Why do you feel like you can't make a decision right now?

  • What's stopping you from signing up for classes?

  • What's holding you back from making a decision right now?

You can ask all the right questions but at the end of the day, a client will only convert if they feel comfortable. For them to feel comfortable, you have to build rapport, establish trust, and develop urgency.

Building rapport involves relating with the client. After all, you are two people and you are creating a connection. Get to know them and build on their personal experiences. Laugh, have a good time, and make the time that you spend together an enjoyable experience.

Establishing trust is done through the quality of your work. Your funnel process will establish this but your performance during the trial lesson will significantly help this as well.

Developing urgency can be unpleasant but is a necessary process of making a sale. Ask them at some point, "can you tell me a specific period in time when you felt like your level of English was not good enough?" Most clients will tell you that they felt uncomfortable in a social situation or bombed a job interview. Follow up by asking, "So what have you done to alleviate this? Did it work?" Finally, tell them that you're not going to wait around for them to decide and you are always looking for more customers. If they don't sign up now, you may no longer have availability and scheduling a lesson may become impossible.

Finally, bring them through an emotional roller coaster. This is mostly handled by your lesson materials but asking the right questions at the right time will also do this. Why? Humans are emotional creatures and we make decisions based on emotion, not logic. Make them feel bad about their level of English, reassure them that it's ok, show a solution, remind them what they're missing out on if they don't take this opportunity, make the sale. If you're also learning a foreign language you can mention your struggles to relate more.


Tips:

• I tell my clients a story of how different accents give me different first impressions of people when I meet them. None of these are definitive, they are only meant to invoke an emotional response.  For example:

  • Indian accent: crappy telephone customer service representative

  • Midwestern accent: uneducated redneck hick

• Follow up the story of the first impression accent with the question, "do you think first impressions are important?", and "how can your accent effect first impressions?"

• Follow up a negative emotional response with a reassuring statement/solution (your English lesson services).

• Have your client pay for lessons on the call.

• You will not always close your clients, and that's ok. Rejection will happen, get used to it.

• Key questions to ask at any point:

  • Can you give me an exact moment when you realized you needed to improve your English?

  • How did you realize that you needed to improve your English?

  • How many times per week do you speak English with a native speaker that corrects you?

  • How do you feel when you are corrected in public? Personally, I feel stupid. Some people won't even notice your mistakes but someone correcting you in public will definitely be noticed. These lessons are a safe space where it's ok to make mistakes.

  • How often do you read out loud and how do you identify mistakes when you do so?

• Your client speaks English with other non-native speakers regularly?

  • You run the risk of picking up on their bad habits, do you want that?

  • Do these people correct your mistakes?

Marketing never ends. You will always be marketing in order to maintain a good pipeline of incoming clients. When you have a constant influx of clients, you will have leverage and won't have to lower your rates to make the sale.

I recommend starting your marketing efforts with the social media platforms that you are already using. I use Facebook and Instagram because I already have authority on there but if you are familiar with other platforms feel free to market on those. Examples include:

• Tutoring marketplaces (pros: more clients, cons: pays less)

  • preply.com

  • italki.com

• Email marketing

  • With your questionnaire, you will start building a list of emails. You can send out an email blast every once in a while to remind customers that you're still offering this service.

• Social media & forums

  • Facebook

  • Instagram

  • Linkedin

  • Twitter

  • Wechat

  • Tiktok

  • Quora

  • Reddit

  • English learning forums

• Word of mouth

  • Word of mouth is by far the best form of marketing. A current customer will refer you to a friend who is in need of your services, saving you valuable time because they are usually already qualified.

• Face to face

  • The reason why an easy landing page is essential is because you might be meeting people at social gatherings and they may ask what you do. You can tell them that you teach English online and them ask them to navigate to your landing page on their smart phone on the spot.

LessonSpeak has its own social media! Connect with LessonSpeak via:

Facebook: facebook.com/LessonSpeak

Instagram: instagram.com/lessonspeak1337

Acquiring a new customer costs as much as 5 times the cost of retaining a current customer. Here are some tips on how to retain your customers:

• Ask for feedback on how you did and adapt to it.

  • Customers may ask for certain topics, certain activities, or other special requests. Do your best to accommodate to this.

• Occasionally ask how they feel about the lesson.

• Offer discount to a past customer so that they return as a paying customer.

• Maintain consistent exposure to your audience via email and social media marketing.