Homeschooling consulting and/or advertising.....?

Question

I am a Master's degreed teacher with 25 years of experience looking to work from home. I would like to serve as a consultant to schools and to homeschool families. Also, I would like to offer specialized tutoring/instruction to homeschool students in my home office. I could also tutor afterschool to any student. My Master's is in counseling, so I could also offer any related service therein. My question is- how do I market this and reach interested students / families? I live in the Houston, Texas area and while I am interested in marketing my services locally, I am not asking for information only specific to Houston - there may be a national way of advertising. Anyone have any ideas? Thank you in advance for your help!

Answer 1

There are several homeschooling groups in the Houston area.  Do a search for "homeschool Houston" and connect with the folks in the group - they can get your info out to their members.

As for nationally, your best bet is to develop a website and market yourself that way.

Answer 2

First, I would contact some local Homeschool support group leaders, be honest, don't pretend to be a homeschooler, but ask if you could sit in on some of their meetings to get to know some homeschoolers.  Your teaching degree does prepare you  for the actual teaching of the subjects, but homeschooling generally operates quite differently from school, and getting to know some homeschoolers personally would be the best way to get an idea of those differences.

The best way to advertise would also probably be through these local groups.  They often look for guest speakers to come and tell about their services.  They also often have newsletters for their groups and might be willing to put notices of your services in.

The Internet would also be a good place.  I am not that familiar with web pages, but if you can have a web page made so that people find it when they Google "Homeschool Houston Texas", you will be surprised how many people you'll reach.

The last thing I would tell you is that you are likely to get the most business by offering to teach the hard subjects like Math (Algebra and up), and Physics.  Most homeschoolers feel quite confident with teaching up until grades 7 or eight, and then many question their ability to teach the material.  (Personally, I don't have a problem with the hard material, I just study ahead of my oldest child so I will be able to teach it).

Answer 3

Put an add in your local news paper.