COVID-19: Understand Your Marketplace
There’s an important difference between Varsity Tutors and Wyzant that most tutors don’t understand…
Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your weekends…at least as much as is possible in these strange times.
With leads slow these days, I’ve heard from many tutors that were previously only listed on one marketplace that they’ve been setting up profiles on multiple websites in an attempt to drive more leads. For example, people who were previously only set up on Varsity Tutors have now created a profile on Wyzant, and vice versa.
First of all, I highly encourage you all to do this right now simply because there’s very little downside. I’m on board with you setting up an account with any platform that classifies its tutors as 1099 independent contractors. The only downside of some of the newer platforms is that there is so little lead flow that it might not even justify setting up a profile (HeyTutor comes to mind…). For that reason, I’ll focus my post today on the two biggest tutoring marketplaces in the United States: Varsity Tutors and Wyzant.
People don’t spend long enough understanding the differences between their platforms
I got the message below from a tutor the other day, which prompted this post:
“I’ve put in 23 applications to Wyzant so far and I’ve only heard back from one. When I put in for jobs with Varsity Tutors, I almost always get them when they are in writing, research, social work, or psychology, especially on the college or graduate school level since I have an MSW. Any idea what I might be doing wrong? I can send you screenshots of some of my applications if you think you can help me and you are willing to try. I would appreciate any assistance you can give.”
As she indicates, the strategy of applying broadly works great for Varsity Tutors! That’s because all student requests in Varsity Tutors go to a pool of tutors who apply for the job.
Wyzant is different. The student/parent does the heavy lifting, researching individual tutors and reaching out only to the tutors that they think are the best fit. Once a student reaches out to a tutor, that job will be listed on the Wyzant jobs page and thus becomes available for other tutors to apply for.
However, that doesn’t mean you should apply for it! Remember, that family already reached out to their favorite tutors. If you are applying to the job, it means you were not on their short list of candidates. Thus your likelihood of winning the job, or even hearing back from them, is very low.
You might be wondering: but who cares? Shouldn’t I just apply to every job under the sun and see what ends up working out? What’s the downside? Well, it turns out the downside is huge…
Understand the algorithm. On Wyzant, you want to maximize the % of conversations that turn into bookings.
While Wyzant should make this information more front and center, their CEO did a blog post on this a couple years ago and it’s got some telling information:
“Wyzant.com gets millions of clicks per day, and we track every one. We also track when you show up in the search results, even when it doesn’t result in a click through to your profile. With all this data, we are able to see a number of different conversions, and the higher your conversion numbers, the better.
The conversion that matters the most is the conversion that results when a student lead contacts you to begin lessons. This is called a “lead to lesson” conversion, and in general, a good conversion rate is 25% or higher. This varies depending on how many tutors a student contacts, the subject, and your hourly rate, and the algorithm does take all that into account. In all cases, the bottom line is that when a student contacts you for help, we suggest you do whatever possible to sell your services and begin lessons.”
Long story short, if over 25% of the conversations you have with students turn into at least 1 booked session, than you’ll get a boost in the algorithm. But if you book less than 25% of your conversations, you could end up buried in the search results.
That’s why applying to jobs is such a bad strategy on Wyzant. Early on before I understood their algorithm, I applied to 192 jobs. Not a single one turned into a student. Even if you end up having more success than that, I can promise you, you will not book anywhere near 25% of your job applications!
That’s why I recommend tutors on Wyzant do not apply to any jobs. In fact, I think they should remove the feature entirely because it’s confusing to tutors and students alike.
If you’re on Varsity, it’s the exact opposite advice! I haven’t found an article detailing how Varsity’s algorithm works, but as far as I can tell from talking to many tutors, applying for lots of jobs does not hurt your chances of winning more jobs in the future, and in fact, applying for as many jobs as possible is the right strategy if you want to pick up leads!
Wyzant gives tutors who retain students for more hours a boost in their search rankings
Wyzant’s CEO says student retention is the next most important metric for determining where you’ll show up in their search results:
“Your first lesson with a student is pivotal. If you’re able to deliver a valuable, enjoyable tutoring experience, you can often set yourself up for a long-term engagement. In addition to being great for your business, retention is also a major factor in Wyzant’s search algorithm. Among the 100 highest-earning tutors on Wyzant, the average student retention is approximately 20 hours.
We understand that different subjects and situations call for varied numbers of lessons. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with providing only a few hours of tutoring to a student who is stuck on a very specific topic or studying for a test. Because of this, the algorithm looks at this factor on a per-subject basis. (In fact, all your Wyzant performance data is considered by subject.) After allowing for these adjustments, tutors who retain students longer will rank higher.”
As he makes clear, the algorithm thankfully accounts for the fact that certain subjects naturally lend themselves to more sessions than others. But overall, you’d rather have 1 student who books 10 hours than 10 students who each book 1 hour.
The most effective way to drive your retention number higher is to offer discounts to students who are willing to get set up on a long term, recurring schedule. I always meet for the first session on a no commitment, one-time basis to ensure my approach clicks with the student. But assuming it does, I reach out to the student and parents after that first session and lay out my recommendation for a long term engagement.
