Free lance tutoring as a business - Part 2

Revenue is not the main thing we should be looking at. Afterall, not all the revenue you earned is going all into your pockets because there is cost involved. Revenue, after all the costs had been deducted, becomes the profit. And that's what we're looking at in this post.

I like to see myself as a company. What I earned for a living is my revenue, while all that I spend are the cost of earning that revenue. So what's left after all the costs are subtracted will be my profits. Some people operate like a heavy capex company, with huge capital expenditures that keeps increasing so as to generate more revenue and high profits. Imagine someone who earns 10k a month and spends 8k a month in order to continue earning 10k a month. This is an example of a high capex individual. Quite tough, I'll say, because you have to keep on running on the treadmill just to stay at the same place. There are others who are like the service industry, light on costs and generally have much higher profit margins. I think I'm more of this type of company.

When we look at profits, we have to look at the cost. Here's a few things worth mentioning with regards to free lance tutoring:

1. Cost of rental + utilities

2. Cost of transport

3, Cost of raw materials

I've analysed quite a few companies listed in sgx. The three main cost are typically rental of premise, wages of labour, and cost of raw materials. For a free lancer tutor, the cost consists of rental + utilities, cost of transportation and cost of raw materials. There are different models of doing this and it depends on who is moving - the student or the tutor. In the student-moving model, the tutor stays put and the student travels over to a place where the tutor rented. The rental premise can also be at the residential property of the tutor, though some of my tutor friends die die refuse to do that. Invasion of privacy they say. The other tutor-moving model means that the student stays put in their own home, while the tutor moves around. I used to operate under this model for nearly 6 to 7 years until I have my own property. Now, I'm mainly adopting the student-moving model, although I still have to travel to some students place for work. 

That's my actual classroom, by the way

Now if you're the tutor who is moving around, then you'll incur transportation cost. If you don't take cabs all the time, the cost will be about $100 to $120 per month if you work 7 days a week. This will of course increase substantially if you take cabs every now and then. This model will have transportation cost incurred but there's no rental or utilities cost. But trust me, if you have to take 3 students a day, you'll end up about 2 hours on the road waiting and travelling. It's low cost but it comes at a heavy price of taxing your time and energy. Hence, I'll typically charge a higher rate to off set this cost, but it's still not fully recoverable. Some tutors might also buy a non-weekend car for the purpose of work too. I'll say it's a great investment, especially if you buy 2nd hand ones with about 3-5 yrs left. Some of the hardest places to go are also the ones that pays the greatest in tuition fees, but you have to work out the sum yourself.

On the other hand, adopting the student-moving model, you'll incur rental cost plus the cost of air-conditioning etc. Those who are using a room in their property will have to put in some renovation costs, and have to add in some teaching aids and a printer, but that's just one off. I always switch on the aircon in my classroom, though I can't be sure if that's a common practice for other tutors. I've been to student's place drenched in sweat from the walking and with no fan for 2 hours. It's not a nice feeling and it affects your concentration level as it's not conducive enough for learning. The good advantage is that you don't have to move about, and can typically save tremendous amount of time that can be better spent on other things, including adding one more extra class per day, if you're so inclined. 

Cost of raw materials is near minimal. There's printing cost of in-house worksheets and past year papers, but that's not usually a lot. Sometimes there's cost incurred in buying books for self reference or for the student, but again, this are far and few. Perhaps with the exception of the first few years when you are still learning your craft, the cost of raw materials for teaching is not especially high.

These 3 are the cost of doing the business but we should look at the non accounting cost of the business too. As an individual, we have to spend on food, entertainment, material goods etc. I count this as the cost of doing business too, though I'm fully aware the standard accounting practice do not count that. Generally, if you're in a high stress job, you will need to spend more to de-stress. A low stress job will require less retail therapy. Some bankers, typically a high stress job with quotas to meet, have to spend tremendous amount of their 'revenue' (i.e. salary) in order to continue working to earn that salary. The end result is that the profit of such people might not necessary be higher than someone earning an average pay in a low-stress job with little or no retail therapy needed. 

If I may be so bold to change the lyrics of that popular song, it's all about the profit, 'bout the profit, not revenue, it's all about the profit, 'bout the profit, not revenue...

Hence, profit is actually the savings you have at the end of your month. Profit margins of a company is your savings rate. If you save 30% of your salary, you're like a company with 30% profit margins. The truly great people-company are the ones with 70 to 90% profit margin, spending only 10 to 30 cts to every dollar they earned. They will have so much cash flow that the happy problem is what to do with it. Pay an interim dividend to themselves or their shareholders? Invest in another stream of revenue? Acquire and merge with another company? Spin off another subsidiary or two with the merger company? LOL

Going to talk about cash flow in the next part. Stay tuned.