Today we’d like to introduce you to Evan Weisberg.
Evan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I majored in English and I received my Bachelor’s degree in this field. I was looking forward to being a writer for a music magazine. However, when I graduated the country had one of the greatest recessions it had ever experienced due to the banking crisis. At this point in time, no jobs were hiring at all and the internet had started to destroy the magazine business. Blogs and podcasts were beginning to become existent and much of the old formulas were rapidly decaying.
Sadly, I picked up work as a security guard, a dancer for an entertainment company, and a substitute teacher for as long as I needed to. Then I applied for a tutoring position on craigslist and after a year, the company responded to my resume. They told me they had a student for me, but first, they had to interview me. I went on the interview and knocked it dead! They told me that I would make a great tutor and my knowledge was more than adequate for this particular case. It was a student who needed help with SAT preparation.
Tutoring came second nature to me because I had helped some of my peers in college when they did not understand the certain material, especially in math courses. From there, I started receiving more students from this company and I applied to others as well. Over the course of the next 3 years, I would say that I worked for every company that I could. Throughout the same time period, I attained my Master’s degree in Special Education.
Finally, at around 25 years old, I decided that I was going to go off on my own. I looked at the previous 3 years as my education of the tutoring business and I knew the ins and outs of it perfectly. I knew it would be a struggle and that it would not just happen overnight. But, fortunately, I landed my first client and the word spread from there. I chose to make large sacrifices like working 7 days a week and I traveled all of the way to deep Miami to almost Port St. Lucie. I took on whatever client I could obtain.
After two years, I had about thirty-five clients, ranging from elementary to high school. In my ten year career, I have tutored over a thousand students. I even worked with a rehab that had me tutor patients to obtain their GED. Going forward, I only want to work with specific cases. I have become more selective with which students I feel I can help most effectively.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
As I mentioned earlier, it was not a walk in the park. However, being an entrepreneur and starting your own business is never. It is even more difficult when you are only a kid in your mid-twenties and your competition is mostly women in their mid-40’s and 50’s who have been in the business for at least fifteen years. They have all of the contacts and this is a referral based business.
People are reluctant to hire you to work with their son or daughter because they simply have never heard of you. Tutoring can also be like a seesaw financially, there are slow times in the year and unexpected situations that occur where you may lose a couple of clients at a time. In this case, you just have to keep pushing forward and be positive. I have found that when this happens you fall into a better situation within time.
There are also struggles with students as well because sometimes parents do not take as active as a role that is necessary for their child’s success. You feel like you have two struggles that you are facing in these circumstances. Other struggles arise when you see all of your peers going out on Friday night, but you cannot because you have a client early in the morning. The dedication and drive it takes to create a successful business is a struggle in itself.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Tutors Who Care – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
My company is named Tutors Who Care. The name says it all. We are tutors who care about more than getting paid for an hour lesson. If you do not succeed, then we have failed you.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Our plans are to keep growing and increasing our following.
Contact Info:
- Website: tutorswhocare.org
- Phone: 5617063783
- Email: tutorswhocare1@gmail.com
- Other: tutoringparkland.com
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