home  >  the private life

Ah, the private life. Private students, that is. In a perfect world, the student comes to your home, plunks down their money, studies for awhile, and is out the door. You never have to leave the friendly confines of your own space. Your maximum expense is maybe a cup of herb tea and a few photocopies made at the convenience store down the street. Piece of cake.

Yeah, right. Let's get real, now. It's a lot more complicated than that. And it's those complications that add up to, in most cases, a whole lot of headache. Things like scheduling nightmares, last-minute cancellations, tuition collection, forgotten tuition, etc. And then there's the BIG problem: where and how do you get new students, i.e., advertising and marketing?

Recently, some companies have been yapping about how they can fill this "I want more new students" need by providing a sort of match-making service. Sort of. The student pays a handsome joining fee (to the matchmaker, natch, never to the teacher), and is teamed-up with the gaijin who gets the tuition fee. With these companies the attitude is, "Hah, hah, we've got the joining fee. We're outta here. Let the gaijin and the student work it out on their own; the scheduling, class location, tuition collection and the rest. See you later."

Of course, with those companies the teaching fee structure is already firmly in place, therefore limiting the amount of money you can make per hour. And the students pay by the lesson. So, you're at the mercy of last-minute cancellations (which are quite the norm) and strong-arming professional students (another norm). That makes any kind of budgeting or financial planning a real mess. And forget about support in any way, shape, or form from the match-maker; once they've been paid their joining fee, you're on your own, Jack.

As a Smith's School of English franchisee things are different. Really different.

To start with, you'll have numerous ways of increasing the amount of money you can make per hour. You'll also have the full support of our totally bilingual, bicultural staff handling your scheduling, sales, counseling, et al. You'll always know how much money will be coming your way as your school grows. You'll serenely watch as all those scheduling bad dreams simply fade away. And those nice student joining fees? They're yours. All yours. Now.

We've designed and engineered a complete and successfully proven franchised English school system that maximizes your income while minimizing the hassles. So, you can finally sit back, relax, have a cup of tea, teach from home, and make the kind of money you really feel you're worth.