People who are interested in tutoring or offering specialized classes for homeschoolers contact us frequently. These potential tutors frequently ask us to help with market surveys (i.e.: are homeschoolers in my area interested in pottery classes?) and to help them advertise their services to local homeschoolers.
Here is the advice we offer:
1) Homeschoolers are everywhere - including your county. Smaller populations have smaller numbers of homeschoolers. Neither HOUSE nor the state of Illinois has a list of Illinois homeschoolers or an exact number of how many are in your area. We suggest you base your estimate on calls to your local Superintendant of schools figures as to how many children are enrolled in the local public school, the number of and approximate enrollment in local private schools, and the knowledge that, in general, 2% of the school-aged population is homeschooled.
2) No member of HOUSE will help you contact our members. No member of HOUSE will contact local members for you. We are a network of individual groups who all agree on a set of basic principals and one of those is that the privacy of our individual members is of the utmost importance.
Please do not even begin to ask if we will sell you our mailing list. We do not even maintain one. Privacy is that important.
3) There are many kinds of homeschoolers and they have a wide variety of interests, likes, and financial situations. We suggest you read something about the many styles of homeschooling before you decide how you will teach homeschoolers, then be prepared to be flexible.
4) If you are interested in teaching homeschoolers then get yourself organized before you start trying to network. At minimum, create a flier detailing exactly what you will offer, exactly when, and at exactly what prices.
We advise against saying something along the lines of "group rates and times available upon request". Instead, establish rates for various sized groups and give them a list of four days and times that you could fit them in.
Most areas have one or two awesome homeschooling parents willing and able to organize events and classes for all the others. You won't know them on sight, but if you do manage to run into one of these rare wonderful parents and give them a positive and organized impression they may not only be willing to work with you - but bring you work as well. Help them along as much as possible by being well organized and timely - after all, they will be doing much or your marketing work for you!
5) Finding homeschoolers with your flier:
We suggest posting signs in area stores, libraries and businesses that relate to the classes you want to teach (for example, a guitar teacher should ask a local instrument shop to post signs or ask local piano teachers to post them in case the student has a sibling interested in a different instrument).
Send the local newspaper a press release announcing your new business and/or place an ad in the local newspaper.
Search for local homeschooling lists on Google or Yahoo and send a message to the owner of any group you find asking politely if it would be possible to advertise your services - and if so, how. Do not simply join the list and post your information! That is extremely rude and many homeschoolers will refuse to ever do business with you after that just on principle.
Start networking by offering free (or greatly reduced fee) programs at a local business, park district, library, museum, or community college. Get to know the people who took these offerings and network, network, network!
Lastly, offer specials or coupons a lot when getting started. Remember, homeschoolers are not some great, wealthy yet untapped market. Most are single income families who are always looking for a bargain or a way of stretching money.
Good Luck in your endeavors!
Kathy Wentz, Webmaster