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Hi Everyone,
Today I'd like to talk about what helps set McElroy Tutoring apart as an educational company and why we are the best choice for elite test prep and private tutoring, especially in a tough economy.
Simply put? We offer experienced, reliable tutors at small-business, recession-proof prices.
Big tutoring companies currently have an overhead problem, because they have too many offices, too many employees, and too many advertising expenses; this explains their outrageous prices. This type of profligate spending and mismanagement is why they are aren't doing very well at the moment!
As for all those flashy (figuratively and literally) start-up tutoring websites run by recent college graduates with angel investors and programming skills, the ones that promise you expert tutors at low prices: while their tutors are usually more affordable, web-based tutoring companies have a credibility problem because they are usually home-based businesses without an established reputation, who hire nearly everyone who applies and have very little quality control and/or executive experience. (This is not to mention those that are straight-up scams!) If a web-based national tutoring business is only 2 years old and already claims to offer over 5,000 tutors, for example, then what does this say about that company's hiring standards?
Over the last few years, it has caught on that tutoring is a booming business, so now everyone's trying to get a piece of the pie. They want to become the next Craigslist by listing hundreds or even thousands of available tutors on their websites. Problem is, Craigslist already does it better and more easily. We don't need another website that lists all the people who would like to try working as a tutor, or have tutored only a few times.
That's why McElroy Tutoring's selectivity and customer service set us apart. While we do have a good selection of tutors, we will only find our clients the tutors who are serious about tutoring, and the ones that are the best at tutoring, and connect our clients with these tutors nearly instantly. We offer free 15-minute phone consultations with your tutor before your first lesson, and you never need to pay for more than one session at a time. In a word, we are reliable.
The truth is that most tutoring companies fit into two categories these days: The Princeton Imitators and the Craigslist imitators. The Princeton Imitators (Princeton is short for Princeton Review, of course, whom I used to work for) typically write their own curricula and proprietary workbooks, buy up office space by the bushel, schedule 8-12 student classes at at $500-$1500 per student, and quickly hire book-smart but inexperienced tutors to teach the classes. Problem is, these companies are built for brief, generic classroom courses, not customized private tutoring. Also, their trainings are minimal and their private tutors lack experience. This is not to mention their ridiculous prices for tutoring (they charge up to a 500-600% markup compared to what they actually pay their tutors).
Some Princeton Review imitators: Kaplan (the original Princeton imitator), Manhattan Prep, Sylvan, Club Z, Revolution Prep, PowerScore, Eureka, Jamboree, Veritas, Ivy West, Ivy Bound, etc.. Princeton Imitators are like the Investment Banks of the Tutoring World: they usually hire intelligent but novice tutors, teach them a rigid and proprietary script, underpay them and work them to the bone, then shrug it off and hire someone else as soon as the tutors get frustrated and quit. In general, they are built to put marketing and profits first, and student results a distant third.
The Craigslist imitators are the companies who want to become the next "Service Engine." They figure that if they can convince enough independent tutors to create profiles on their website, and they take a smaller cut than most companies do, then they will eventually turn a profit. They take advantage of trust funds and angel investors, and they build pretty-looking websites with lots of tutors listed but no real selectivity or accountability. These companies are little more than a glorified Craigslist with more headshots and fancier window dressing.
Some Craigslist imitators: TutorsTeach.com, Tutor.com, E-Tutor.com, WyzAnt.com, GlobalScholar.com.
If you want to find a cheap tutor with little legitimate tutoring experience, then feel free to go to one of these websites, or even better, to Craigslist itself, where there is no middleman at all, it is free to post, and I have seen prices as low as $10/hr quoted by people who lack tutoring experience and qualifications but need extra work. There are definitely people who will work for even less if you look hard enough. But if you want a truly professional and effective tutor, then you need a company that has real experience in the business and knows what it takes to be an expert instructor.
In other words, if companies like TutorsTeach are the Craigslists of the tutoring world, then McElroy Tutoring is its Google. We don't present you with all possible tutors in no particular order; we present you with only you the best tutors, in order.
-Brian
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