8 Non-Teaching Skills You Need to Launch an Online English Tutoring Business

You may feel like you need to be a jack of all trades when you’re establishing your own independent ESL business. You find students, create lessons, schedule classes, and collect payments. But there’s no need to panic. You probably already have the essential teaching skills and technical equipment to get started, and you can learn the other skills you need to launch an online tutoring business.

If you’re new to teaching, you’ll want to get initial training and qualification with a TEFL certificate. You can explore our online TEFL courses to get started!

What does it mean to work for yourself as an online English teacher?

A lot of new online English teachers opt to work with online English teaching companies. A company offers training and structure for new teachers, and it provides the lesson plans. Working with companies often promises a steady income stream and student bookings. The other side of the coin is that you may not have much freedom when it comes to choosing your learners, your hourly rate, and your teaching methods.

However, starting your own business or working in an ESL marketplace as an independent online English teacher is the way to go if you’re looking for greater flexibility. As your own boss, you get to call the shots about every single aspect of your business. That includes the age and level of the students you’ll teach, your teaching rates, how you’ll organize class schedules, and the curriculum and materials you’ll develop to use in your classes.

Many teachers also run both models at the same time. They keep a few company hours for predictable income while they build a private student base, then drop the company work once their own bookings cover the gap. This mixed start removes much of the financial pressure from the first months.

Who starts an online English tutoring business?

Being an online ESL teacherpreneur offers plenty of perks and allows English educators to continue to grow, so more and more teachers are jumping onto this career path. Plenty of different people are teaching English online for themselves:

• Digital nomads who want to work from anywhere (like Bridge grad Mari, in Scotland)
• Stay-at-home parents who need flexible income
• College students working part-time or on a gap year
• Classroom-based English teachers who want to shift to a home-based job
• K-12 teachers of any subject looking to pick up a side gig and earn extra money

Many EFL teachers just need patience to get their business off the ground. Sheyla, a Brazilian ESL teacher giving private online classes in the U.S., said, “Little by little, my online classes took over my other part-time jobs, and now, I am so happy that I have so many classes every day to keep me busy and allow me to still make money.”

These profiles share one advantage: each teacher already understands their learners. A former corporate employee knows what business English students face at work, and a parent knows what other parents want from young learner classes. Your own background usually points to your niche.

What are the benefits of starting your own online ESL business?

• You can target the students you want to teach, such as young learners, business professionals, or university students. You can explore so many interesting ESL niches.
• You’ll have higher earning potential because you can set your own class rates based on your unique qualifications and experience (and all the revenue you earn goes straight to you).
• Teaching virtually saves you time and money on commuting, and it also allows you to book more classes during the day.
• You don’t have to deal with the issue of employers sometimes preferring native speakers if you’re a non-native English speaker.
• You keep the student relationship. A company can reassign the learners it books for you, but your own students stay with you when you change platforms, and they refer friends and colleagues directly to you.

Looking for more learners? Explore real strategies for finding new ESL students.

What non-teaching skills do you need to start an online English tutoring business?

You need these core skills to kickstart and successfully run your own online ESL business, whether you want to make your online English teaching venture a full-time job or do it as a side gig.

1. Marketing skills

You have to attract as many potential students as possible before you start your online English teaching business. You can also let them find you by increasing your online (and even offline) presence. But how do you do that, exactly?

• Social media savvy. Websites and social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn let you market yourself and advertise your English classes.
• Ability to target your niche. You need to know which platforms work best for reaching out to your particular target students, and the most effective way to do so within these platforms. (For example, through paid ads, by posting helpful tips for English learners, sharing videos, etc.)
• Networking skills. Many of these social channels are also a great place to create networks and connect with various groups or communities to market yourself as an online English teacher.
• Website management. You may also decide to create a website where you can provide potential students with information about you, your classes, and your rates, let them book classes, or help them find English learning resources.

Carla, from Brazil, is a virtual EFL teacher who has successfully built her client base through social media. “Promoting your work online is a never-ending job. One needs to be persistent because results don’t come overnight,” she shared.

2. Operational skills

You handle all the decision-making and processes when you run your own business as an online English teacher. These include:

• Choosing your teaching platform. Will you teach classes through Teams, Zoom, or other software?
• Managing payments. You’ll have to pick the easiest method and schedule for receiving your students’ payments. The students’ company may also ask you to issue an invoice before they deposit your pay into your account if you’re giving corporate classes.
• Setting cancellation policies. What is the cut-off time for students to cancel a lesson before you count it as a paid class?

3. Creative skills

Creative skills will be very handy for marketing your online ESL business if you want to use social media to get online students or drive people to your website. Sometimes, you may have to think outside the box to grab potential students’ attention.

• Graphic design. Do you have a knack for creating eye-catching graphics? This non-teaching skill will be invaluable as you create posts for social media, put together emails to send to your mailing list, or make images with fun tips about learning English to share with your followers.
• Video skills. You may also need some creativity and skills when it comes to making videos. For example, you’ll use these skills when crafting your teacher introduction video.
• Creating dynamic lessons. Creativity does more than advertise your classes. You’ll have to come up with plenty of creative ways to plan your lessons and deliver dynamic activities.
• Creating an engaging teaching background. You want to build rapport with young learners (or their parents) and keep students’ interest. A colorful teaching background your students will love is a great way to do this.

Find the best tech tools for online English teachers.

4. Time management and organizational skills

Being your own boss means that no one can tell you what to do with your time. Still, you need to manage your schedule and balance activities effectively to run your online English teaching business smoothly.

• Class scheduling. Fitting more classes into your calendar will be like putting puzzle pieces together once you start getting more students. You’ll have to create your ideal teaching schedule without compromising the hours you’ve reserved for other important responsibilities. Use online apps like Google Calendar or Calendly to help you do this.
• Task management. You’ll also have to juggle your time between giving online classes and tasks involved in managing your business operations. Don’t forget that you’ll also have to allow some time for teaching-related work, such as lesson planning, checking exams, and creating student reports or evaluations.
• Maintaining work-life balance. Finally, you should learn to set aside some time for yourself, too. Skipping your breaks between classes or working without at least a day off could lead to burnout when teaching online, and that can affect the quality of your work.

5. Business development skills

You’ll want to grow your business in the long run, unless you intend to teach online for only a short period of time. Planning to succeed is what differentiates good from great independent online ESL teachers, so you have to decide which direction you want your business to go and how you can get there.

Consider the following ideas for scaling your online English school:

• Expanding or offering your services to other regions or a bigger clientele, like multinational companies.
• Establishing a pricing model for your online classes that includes different rates for one-on-one vs. groups, classes for specialized niches, or promotional packages and deals.
• Developing clear branding to make your online English business stand out in a competitive market.

Want to grow? Find out how to monetize your ESL teaching business.

6. Financial management skills

You collect your own income as an independent teacher, so you also carry the bookkeeping an employer would normally handle. Teachers who track their numbers from the first month set rates with more confidence than teachers who estimate.

• Separating business and personal money. A dedicated account for class payments shows you what the business actually earns, and it makes your tax reporting far simpler at the end of the year.
• Setting money aside for taxes. No employer withholds tax for you, so you need to reserve a percentage of every payment and check what your country requires from self-employed teachers.
• Tracking income and expenses. A simple spreadsheet covering class payments, platform fees, software subscriptions, and equipment purchases tells you which months carry your year.
• Pricing for unpaid hours. Lesson planning, grading, material prep, and messages to students all take real time, so your hourly rate has to cover the work you do outside the classroom.

Feeling overwhelmed? Get some tips to help you manage cash flow as an independent English teacher.

7. Communication and relationship management skills

Excellent communication skills are vital for teaching English online, and you will need them even outside of class hours.

• Effective student-teacher communication. Keeping in touch with your learners by phone or email is an inevitable part of your day-to-day tasks as a self-employed teacher, whether you’re coordinating class schedules or simply answering their English-related doubts.
• Creating rapport. Building rapport also helps you keep new online ESL learners, because it makes them inclined to continue learning with you.
• Fostering existing relationships. Building good long-term relationships with students can also generate positive feedback, which in turn could lead them to recommend your classes among their circles.

See why independent English teachers need TEFL business management software.

8. Persistence and motivation

The last non-teaching skills you need to launch an online English tutoring business are the ones no course can teach you.

Your family and friends may have your back as you stand on your own two feet as an online English teacher, but you’ll also need the drive to achieve your goals and never give up, despite the hurdles that may come your way. Be confident in your abilities, and students will also believe in you as a teacher.

How do you develop the business and marketing skills to start an online ESL business?

You don’t need a degree or experience in business to acquire the skills listed above. Chances are, you’ve already got a lot of them. These approaches will help you hone the most important skills for successfully kicking off your online English teaching venture:

• Join Bridge’s Teacherpreneur Academy if you’re already TEFL certified. This highly targeted training serves current educators and focuses 100% on the non-teaching marketing and business skills it takes to become a successful teacherpreneur.
• Learn from other independent online English teachers who have made it on their own by connecting with them through LinkedIn or other social networking platforms.
• Get tips about working independently by joining the Bridge TEFL/TESOL Jobs Group and Bridge Teaching English Online Group on Facebook.
• Test your systems on a small group before you scale up. Two or three students are enough to check that your booking process, payment method, cancellation policy, and invoicing work in practice, and problems are much easier to fix at that size.

None of these eight skills requires a business degree, and most teachers already hold several of them without noticing. Scheduling and student communication are versions of work you already do in a classroom, applied to your own business instead of someone else’s. You can start from wherever you are in the process, as long as you keep building the skills to market yourself and manage your business.

Build the rest in the order your business needs them. Marketing and operational skills matter from day one, while business development and financial planning become more useful once you have steady bookings. Teachers who keep adding to this set charge more and keep students longer, because a reliable booking system and clear communication give learners a reason to stay.

Ready to build the business side of your teaching? Enroll in the Bridge Teacherpreneur Academy and develop your niche, pricing, marketing, and business operations plan to make your business stand out from day one.