How I Made $800–900/Week in College by Tutoring Freshmen
How I Used My Language Skills to Land a Sweet Gig All While My Friends Were Totally Broke.
There’s a special kind of pleasure one feels as the “richest” person in your friend group. I know it’s not a very nice thing to say, but it’s the truth. And yeah, I REALLY was that girl with the hot, new, flashy LV bag every month when I was in college😊.
I had everything I needed, drinks every Friday-Sunday, a cute little red mustang GT, and I felt like everything (except my relationship) was right in the world.
Some of my “frenemies” would accuse me of being a nasty freak on OnlyF**. I’d hear them whispering sugar behind my back when I’d be leaving their company.
Of course I’d never stoop to that level, I value my dignity, but I never wanted to reveal my secret. To be honest, I just didn’t want to tell anyone how I was making at least $600 and at times $900+ (on average around $800) every single week simply because I was worried that they would cut into my earnings.
Now that I’ve been out of Michigan for a couple of years, oh, and I’ve been making a LOT more by working part-time online translation jobs, I’m willing to share this little side hustle that I had going…….
ALL BECAUSE je parle français… at a semi-passable level.
Figure Out Your Skillset
Even though, as they say, money doesn’t grow on trees, you almost 100% CERTAINLY have a skill that can be easily monetized right now. You’re currently reading this, that means you speak English.
Did you know that there’s an entire country that is hell bent on getting every single one of its citizenry to understand English?
Hint: the country starts with C and ends with H — I — N — A.
That means you can start tutoring for at least $49 an hour:
Chinese learn English from online US tutors as remote jobs rise (usatoday.com)
So, I remember distinctly during my sophomore year walking to take out the garbage. I wanted to call my mom to tell her what a frustrating week I’d been having, then I realised something….I don’t have any money to buy some airtime!!
Yep, I really was that broke b*tch using a prepaid 7–11 phone….in 2018. YIKES😂!!
I’d had enough of being a loser and decided that I MUST have money and I just DIDN’T CARE how it came. I’d sell anything…except that one thing.
Anyway, I had an almost spontaneous realisation…wait…I speak French! I’d spoken it since I was a kid, because my mom was from Lyon and fell for an American guy. At home, we all basically spoke a combination of French and English. So, like a stoke of lightning, a thought just came up:
Weren’t there some people taking French 101 that would surely need help trying to figure out how to count from one to ten?!
Duh!!! I just figured out that I have a potentially marketable skillset and an ever flowing group of customers that would always need assistance!
Find Your Customer
Spoiler alert…you can’t really find your customer if you can’t see them clearly in your mind (or your data).
What kind of people do you see buying your service? How many of them are there? if you can’t answer these two questions, then you almost certainly have a failed business idea.
For me finding my customer was very, very easy. I was already part of a university, so it was just a matter of seeing who in the incoming freshman classes, as well as sophomores (and the rare junior), needed help with French.
I was a bit shameless as a young, hungry lass.
I would post my number and a picture of my face as a “french tutor”. I would then hang around the halls and would just chat up total strangers, saying that I was interested in tutoring people in French. They’d ask me how much I was charging and I would say $20/hour, $50/week or even $100 per week, depending on how our interaction would go and if I sensed that they were loaded.
Eventually, my line was blowing up non-stop!!
And of course, my rates grew from there. I would get calls at 3 am from sleazy drunk guys asking me to hang out with them. LOL! I’d tell them to cashapp me $50 for wasting my time and I’d get it about half the time.
It was all business to me, I couldn’t stop thinking about the money.
At the end, I was charging $100/half hour for French lessons. I still think about my best day, which was $342. A client had enjoyed hanging out and the tutoring so much that she tipped me everything she had in her purse. You have to remember, this was basically a fortune for me at the time.
I smiled like a princess all the way home!
This was all because I knew my customer and did my best to provide a good service (tutoring).
So, just answer the three questions:
- Who is are my customers?
- How many are there?
- How will I reach them?
And you’ll have the beginning of a business. Back then, everything was so much harder than it is post pandemic. These days, if you can speak any language, you can basically switch on your laptop and start earning within the day. However, back then, we needed a little more elbow grease to bring home the bacon.
Thank you for joining me on this journey, I am absolutely chuffed to bits that you took the time to read this work 🤗, my dear reader. I look forward to sharing more valuable insights with you in the future, as I try to find long term financial success through online marketing.
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Hope you have an absolutely fantastic day!