The UK government is giving out financial aid to small businesses, but do tutors who manage their businesses from their own homes get some? It depends. If you pay business rates, then you can receive from the Small Business Relief Fund.

In this episode, Neil discusses more on what sole proprietors like him are facing amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The government has forgotten about  hardworking educators. But not only them, several workers too are getting furloughed because of the current situation. Start learning on what does this mean for you, when you tune in.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• When you’re in furlough, you aren’t paid. You might get payment for an invoice on something that you’ve done before that, but not during the furlough period. The minimum time to be furloughed is 3 weeks. You must change your status if you want take on a job/task.
• Question and Answer:
  • What type of task can I give to my employee that’s in furlough? Nothing. Not even a single sales phone call or email.
  • Can a furloughed employee look for another job? Yes. BUT it should be treated as an unauthorized unpaid leave by your current employer.
• All eligible businesses in England, who pay business rates, can receive a £10000 payment under the Small Business Relief Fund. So, if you aren’t eligible, just like Neil, a tutor who works from home, you won’t receive any.
• For employers, ensure that the employees who work from home have the capacity and the equipment needed. Some aren’t capable of working from home because of their economic status. Note that the government allows people to travel for work, given that they don’t show coronavirus symptoms.

BEST MOMENTS

• “When furlough directors need to carry out particular duties to fulfil statute obligations that they owe to their company, they can do that. But they must do no more than they’d be reasonably judged necessary for the purpose.”
• “The government does not recognise the vast number of sole proprietors and sole practitioners.”
• “Employers and employees should discuss working arrangements. And employers should take every step to facilitate.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
• Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - Neilcowmeadow.com!

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected]

“It’s a catalyst to action. That’s what we have now.”

More than half of the world right now are feeling the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. The pandemic has caused delay in our businesses, our daily routines, and most definitely, the help we give to other people.

There are a thousand ways you can help. (And they really weren’t kidding when they said that.) Surely, we can find alternatives, even at the middle of the quarantine situation. For educators, teachers, and tutors, maybe now is the time that we create or repurpose our content to online videos? Or online courses?

Neil discusses more on how you can keep it going amid the Covid-19 outbreak, so tune in to the latest episode of The Tutor Podcast.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Keep on helping people. Choosing to better yourself must not stop, even in quarantine. If you can teach and give them the resources they can consume during this time, go for it.

Keep your routine going. Have a list of the things that need to be done, and schedule them. It’s more difficult now to follow your usual routine because you’re just staying at home. Remove distractions. Find alternatives for the parts that you usually do outside (i.e. running).

The business goes on. You can continue delivering your services. If you can’t teach face-to-face, look into webchats, online courses, etc. Once you’ve recorded yourself teaching and posted it online, you now also have content that can gain traction whenever.

Think of ANY thing you can do to keep the momentum going. You can change your ways on how to create or even repurpose your existing content. Just ensure you are being smart and responsible considering the current situation.

If there’s a system in place, then you shouldn’t feel threatened whatever problems may arise. You’ll surely survive during and after a crisis if there’s a consistent flow of work and income. Start acting now.

BEST MOMENTS

“We need to preserve some self-control, because so much now is being taken away in terms of our freedom and movements.”

“If we can keep heling others, we can help ourselves.”

“This is the moment for growth and scale.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected]

This time on The Property Tutor Podcast, Neil gives his take on Covid-19. He discusses how it has affected businesses, with some already going into administration and others hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Neil gives sound advice on how to deal with your mental health and business problems, as well as giving ideas on how your business can survive Covid-19 through digital distribution.

Above all, Neil looks for the ‘Opportunity in the Crisis’, to capitalise on Covid-19 to come up with creative solutions that benefit us all. He talks about his own personal near-death experience and how he learned first-hand to create income in a difficult time.

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected]

There are four types of people: Larks, Owls, Cows and Vampires. 

By working out which one you are, you can manage your life in order to fit your natural tendencies. But which one are you? 

In this week’s show, Neil takes you through each type in his own unique way, and tells you all about how you can achieve a far happier existence by applying a simple rule: To know and understand yourself is to manage and master yourself.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Larks - The annoying types who wake up very early, full of energy and bounce and ready to take on the world.
• Owls - These are the opposite to larks. They tend to take all day to get going, but can work well into the night.
• Cows - Most of society stick to a regimented form of workday, finishing in the early evening and grabbing a few hours for themselves before going to sleep, so that they can do it all again the next day.
• Vampires - Those “nocturnal beasts” who do their best work during the wee hours, when the rest of the world is asleep.
• The Oracle Of Delphi had an inscription upon entering which read “Know Thyself”. This feeds into an invaluable lesson in life, that to know and understand yourself, is truly the best way to manage and master yourself.
• When transitioning between careers that had starkly different working times, Neil was told to diarise his day in order to identify where he was falling short. Through this process, Neil realised that his life was suffering a hangover from his previous life as a “vampire”. By making adjustments, he was able to make himself more effective in the daytime.
• By knowing the kind of creature you are, you can make sure that you’re doing your best work at the optimal time, and thereby making the most of yourself.
• Develop your own routine, and build it around your rest periods and the times of day in which you have the most energy, and produce the best results. 
• Working for yourself allows you to really develop the best template for your working day. Don’t assume that just because your daytime is free, that you’ll do your best work there. Perhaps you could do something more productive, so plan ahead.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I hate ‘em…'

‘I reckon I’m at least 51% vampire’

‘Bit of a pattern developing there, guys…'

’The casino business had pressed me into the ranks of the undead!’

‘It doesn’t matter if you’re a lark, an owl, a cow or a vampire. You can tailor your life to fit you'

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected]

105TTP Self Sabotage & Being Calibrated Perfectly

 

DESCRIPTION

‘It’s all about calibration – we work perfectly, but if we are mis-calibrated we’ll work perfectly in pursuit of the wrong thing’

In this fascinating episode, Neil explains how self-sabotaging behaviours can be conquered if you are aware of the behaviours and take action to change them.

The key is our own perception of normal and the story we have for ourselves, the inner voice that always seeks to return us to our own ‘normal’.

If you want to bring your story into your reality and make choices that will drive you forward then listen in.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Sabotage is defined as any deliberate action aimed at undermining or impeding the progress of a person or organization.
• Often it is voiced as a misunderstanding and rationalised in some way.
• If you are your own saboteur, you are potentially taking actions that could cost you time, money and impact on the relationships you have.
• Self-sabotage is linked to how we feel and what we perceive as normal.
• If things are going well and exceeding expectations people will self-sabotage to bring things back to what they perceive as normal – often a lower level because that’s where they feel they deserve to be.
• The same self-sabotage is in action when the situation is below expectations.
• We are our own worst enemies, and we are our own greatest assets.
• At the time of self-sabotage, you will justify almost any of the actions you take.

Changing

• Becoming aware is vital – when you are about to do something self-sabotaging ask yourself;
• Is this what my business is really all about?
• Is this helping me, or is this hurting me?
• You must be honest with yourself because the easiest person to fool is yourself.

Prevention

• Schedule regular time slots to analyse what you do and reflect and review your actions, it will help you stay on track.
• Update the stories you tell yourself as these have a habit of coming true. Your inner narrative should be constantly evolving as you do to provide the clarity you need.
• Calibrate your own stories: tell yourself better lies and start living in accord with them
• Check your progress honestly, eliminating what doesn’t help you and focussing on what you need to do to bring your story into reality.

 

BEST MOMENTS

‘It can be easy to be lured into doing daft stuff that won’t help you’

‘Our inborn tendency to stay true to whatever lies/stories we tell ourselves’

‘We’ll unconsciously act to exert control and restore the situation to whatever our idea of normal should be’

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

www.Neilcowmeadow.com

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

 

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected]  

The Tutor Podcast Twitter   

In this episode Neil explains how you can turn your problems into positives and how a problem can not necessarily be a problem. He discusses how problems can depend on the perspective and mind-set that you have on a particular issue.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

‘When is a problem not a problem?’

‘Situations are just situations’

‘Seize every opportunity you have’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tutorpodcast

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years of experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

Neil Cowmeadow

• [email protected]

Some very high-profile people have made excellent use of social media to position themselves as experts and to develop a personal brand – and that’s SM being used as a valid strategy and a powerful marketing tool. It helps if you are young, female and good-looking. In this episode Neil discusses how you can use social media to grow your business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• We can all learn from their examples if we want to “big ourselves up” and be more visible. SM reaches countless people, so it should be possible to construct a following for yourself, regardless of what niche you are operating in.
• You have to be very consistent for a very long time to grow your tribe, but it’s doable. You’ll be posting regularly and often, dealing with fans and trolls – lovers and haters.
• Weigh up the pros of doing lots of SM – then consider the Cons.
• Social media is a really big deal to a lot of people – we, as tutors need to decide whether we want it to be a big deal for us. Use social media going to give you a commercial advantage or marketing edge

There is way more people consuming content on SM than there are producing it – so the chances are that you will be a consumer rather than a producer. That time could be better spent face to face with clients, marketing, developing IP such as music, writing, courses and so on.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Everything has up/downsides’

‘Getting sucked in to the YouTube vortex is – for me – the kiss of death.’

‘SM is a gold mine, but for the vast majority it is a black hole.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tutorpodcast

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years of experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

Neil Cowmeadow

• [email protected]

What are the most important numbers for your business?

Knowing your numbers is key to knowing whether your business is going to work for you.

Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean you can turn it into a successful business unless you know your numbers.

Neil takes an in-depth look at the  numbers in your business helping anyone who has a tutoring business to understand what and how they can have a truly successful business doing what they love

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

As tutors, business isn’t usually an area of special knowledge

There is a  focus on the technical skills and knowledge needed to teach and the necessary business skills may be neglected.

What are the most important numbers for your business?

It’s not how much money you bring in to your business it’s what there is after you’ve paid for everything.

There are  two variables that generate profit - sales and costs

Sales are generated through;

Teaching fees

Product sales

Royalties & commissions

Investment incomes

Anything else that brings money into the business

Costs are incurred through;

Wages

Cost of goods and materials (sheet music, strings, etc)

Equipment purchase/leasing/rental

Travel – motor use/trains/planes/hotels/food

Rent, rates and other property expenses: fuel gas, electricity, insurance etc

Everything else that is vital to the running of the business and which takes money out of the business.

Until you understand and know what your numbers really are, you don’t really know if you have a viable business.

Without the numbers, you can’t assess where you are.

You have no baseline to and cannot measure the effect of any changes you may make to how you run your business.

How can you increase your revenue?

Think about it – could you:increase your customer base, Raise your fee rate,Increase the frequency of sales

How can you reduce your costs?

Look at all your costs – the fixed costs, and the variable costs of doing business

Fixed costs don’t vary with the amount of work done – rent, fixed salaries etc

Variable costs depend on the amount of work done – e.g. cost of travel to a client’s location

You have the control to raise your income and reduce your costs if you understand the numbers in your business.

Get the clarity you need on your numbers and then you can move your business forward and make more money.

 

BEST MOMENTS

‘It’s easy to confuse our excellence and specific technical skills with having a good business, but they’re very different things.

‘Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity’

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

www.Neilcowmeadow.com

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

 

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected]  

The Tutor Podcast Twitter   

 

Neil has been thinking about time and its value and explains the importance of punctuality and respect for time in relation to your tutor business and to life in this episode.

We all have people in our lives who are punctual and also those who are consistently late and Neil explains how our punctuality or lack of is woven into the respect and the trust we have with others.

A lack of punctuality gives permission for others to mess you around whilst punctuality and consistency are the hallmarks of excellence – listen in and find out how you can respect both yourself and others through the way you manage your time.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Not only do you have to respect your own time but you must also respect the time of others.
• If you don’t respect their time they won’t respect yours.
• Always be punctual and consistently on time. Consistency is the hallmark of excellence
• Punctual people are more likely to be perceived as trustworthy as opposed to those who show up late and are seen as unpredictable.
• Punctual people do better than people who are late because they get more respect.
• Punctual people earn more money because they command more trust and respect, It automatically positions them as experts.
• People who show up on time get more referrals as people won’t recommend someone who doesn’t show up on time.
• When you make it easy to deal with you, your students will back for longer.
• When you are punctual, reliable and consistent you are automatically perceived as having everything together in your life.
• The 3-step formula for earning extra credibility, respect and ultimately higher fees just by being punctual are;
• Show up on time and leave on time (don’t give the impression you have nothing else to do with your time)
• Show up prepared have everything you need and in working order
• Deliver a kick-arse content that is fun for your students and for you.

 

BEST MOMENTS

‘Because I’m always on time my tribe is always on time’

‘If you are consistent and punctual then your tribe will love you’

‘There are only so many hours in the day so I put a start and end time on everything’

 

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

www.Neilcowmeadow.com

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

 

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected] 

The Tutor Podcast Twitter   

 

You can wake up 2,3, or 5 years down the line and wonder what has happened and where the time went. This is particularly common to driven personalities and entrepreneurs who are immersed in their work, have a strong inner compass, determined action takers and some might say obsessed.

 

Neil explains an easy method for how you can avoid this from happening.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Check your progress every couple of months. A good way to do this is to have accountability days every month to check the performance of the business and work on the next acquisition or deal.
• Spend the whole of that day examining your business – get away from your desk and turn the phone off. If it’s urgent they’ll call back
• Make a date with yourself to do this regularly – in your diary – don’t let anything shunt it off your schedule, because it matters too much to let it slide.
• When you’ve done your reflection analysis – make your plans to implement what you noticed about your business.
• Do it, and see how you get on – I’m pretty certain that you’ll have an “A-ha!” moment or six when you do the work and get honest with yourself – I know I did!

BEST MOMENTS

‘Planning and reflection works’

‘Bottom line is that this stuff works.’

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

www.Neilcowmeadow.com

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

 

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected] 

The Tutor Podcast Twitter