Cafetalk is an Online Education Platform.

That means it is your space to freelance as a tutor - designing

your own lessons, setting up your own profile, and also promoting yourself to our ever-growing student
base.
To make your promotional activities easier, we provide a number of tools, information, and
services you can utilize. This is a guide introducing and explaining everything we offer.

1) Promotional Tools

Discount Coupons
Discount coupons are a great way of giving new students or your current
students an incentive to take lessons with you. You decide your
discount rate, the validity of the coupon, and who is eligible to use it (all
students / new students only / one specific student).

● Use coupons to give a high discount to new students. Always

having a coupon for new students available can help acquire
new students.

● Every once in a while, remind your existing student base that you have openings!
Create an Autumn Coupon, a Spring Coupon, a Christmas Coupon - the possible
occasions are endless!

● Give coupons to individual students. Whether to invite them to take a second lesson
after they took your consultation, to thank them or apologize for a possible no-show or
cancelled lessons - students will feel grateful and appreciated!

Difference between Discount Coupons and Trial Lessons

The trial lesson you can set up for each lesson on your lesson list is a tool that allows students
to get a taste of your lesson.
Usually tutors will set the time of the trial lesson to be shorter than the regular lesson and lower
the price accordingly.
This is helpful for students who might not be sure yet if their skill level is high enough for the
lesson they wish to take or if the content is what they were looking for.
Students can request the trial lesson only once and will have to make a new request in order to
take the regular lesson at a later date.

In contrast, Discount Coupons apply to the regular lesson and simply lower the price, giving
the student an option to take the full lesson at a reduced rate once. (Each coupon can only be
used once by the student.)
This targets the students who prefer taking the full lesson over a short trial or are already fairly
sure they do want to take the lesson, but gives them the incentive to make their request while
the coupon is valid.
If a student has not yet booked their regular lesson after doing the trial lesson, you can also try
to follow up with them by sending them a coupon / mentioning they can do the full lesson with a
discount coupon if they still feel unsure.

Offering both trials and coupons gives students lots of options and helps a tutor to target a
broader range of students.

Tutor Notifications
Sending out Tutor Notifications will help you raise your visibility on Cafetalk. You can send
notifications to all students on Cafetalk and opt to have that notification sent out as a private
message to students in your “My Students” as well. If you have created a coupon, this is the
perfect way to advertise it to your students. You can also advertise Tutor Column entries or
make announcements to your students.

● Use the Tutor Notifications to advertise coupons. This way the biggest number of
students possible will know about your discount! You can also advertise column entries
or new lessons.

● If you have an announcement for your students or implemented big changes on your
profile, you might want to inform your students about these. Let them know about your
vacation plans, new lessons, and changing availability!

● If you select “Send this notification message to my students.” your notification will also
be sent as a private message to all students in your “My Students”-list.

Tutor Column
The Tutor Column is another tool to raise visibility. It functions as a blog Cafetalk Tutors can
write for all Cafetalk Students. It will be displayed in chronological order and filtered by the
students’ categories of interests on their dashboards.
When writing your columns, please make sure not to infringe on intellectual property. If you use
content other people have created, paraphrase and post your source. Please refrain from
copying whole paragraphs of content other people have created.

● Keep your columns short and adjust the content to your target group.

● You can write about yourself to further introduce yourself to your students, introduce
your lessons, or publish small articles about the category you are teaching.

● If you are a language teacher, keep in mind your students are still studying the language
you are teaching. Keep it simple.

● If you have some, use pictures!

Online Standby
Online Standby is a tool that allows you to signal to students that you are available for instant
lesson requests for a specific amount of time. This not only allows you to get additional
lessons when you are not fully booked but also helps you raise visibility since online tutors
are displayed directly on the students’ dashboards.

● You will need the 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed badge to use online standby.

● There is a guide that explains how to use online standby. Read through it carefully and
always make sure your browser is set up to receive desktop notifications.

● Online standby works especially well with short conversation classes or short
introductory/trial classes. Many students use online standby to try out new tutors, so
you can make good use of this to acquire new students.

● Even if you do not get many lesson requests via online standby, it will help raise your
visibility and profile views since online tutors are displayed so prominently.

Lesson Wishlist
On Cafetalk, the general system is designed so that while tutors can advertise themselves, the
students are usually the ones to initiate contact by sending a message or placing a lesson
request.
The “Lesson Wishlist” allows tutors to initiate contact with the students first. On the wishlist,
students can post advertisements for tutors or lessons they are looking for. If you meet a
student's requirements, you can directly reply to their wish, leaving a personalized message for
the student as well as a lesson you would like to propose.

● Propositions that do not appropriately address the students’ requirements will be filtered
by the Cafetalk system and will not be sent to the student. Please make sure to only
contact students if you meet all of the specified requirements.

● You will receive notifications via email if there is a new wishlist entry in a category you
teach.

● You can receive a rough, automatic translation for requests other than your native
language by clicking on them.

2) Profile Improvement

Identity Verification / NDA

Completing the identity verification process allows you to agree to the NDA, which in return
allows you to build trust with your students, especially business clients. Completing the
identity verification also allows you to register your qualifications and is part of the process of
applying for the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee program.
Qualifications
If you have any qualifications - e.g. a teaching certificate, a language certificate or a university
degree - you can register them officially with Cafetalk. This will convey your professionalism
and competence to your current and future students.

100% Satisfaction Guarantee program

The 100% Satisfaction Guarantee program is another great way to build trust with your current
and future students. It allows any student who has taken a lesson with you to receive a full
refund should your lesson not have met their expectations - and the cost will be fully covered
by Cafetalk.

Tutor Ribbons
Tutor Ribbons are achievements you can receive for teaching on Cafetalk. Depending on the
type of Ribbon different requirements need to be met. For more information on ribbons, please
visit the Ribbon page here.
https://cafetalk.com/dashboard/tutor/account/ribbon/?lang=en

3) Further training

Tutor Testimonials
The Tutor Testimonials are interviews we have conducted with veteran Cafetalk tutors, where
they talk about how they themselves started out on Cafetalk, marketed themselves, and learned
to cater to their specific student demographic. Each testimonial might be useful for a different
kind of tutor, so here is a quick overview:

Dani L.: Any (English) tutor / Tutors who want to teach English but do not speak
Japanese /Tutors who have never taught Japanese students before
Rhys: Any (English) tutor / English tutors who speak Japanese / Tutors who would like to teach
children
Jenny F.: Tutors who want to teach children
Dahee: Korean tutors

Tutors for Tutors

While the Cafetalk staff do offer private, free of charge consultation sessions to help you and
give you individualized feedback for your profile, lessons, and promotional activities, we are not
tutors. If after reading the testimonials you feel like you might want to continue learning with one
of our veteran tutors, you can now do so!
Tutors for Tutors is a project where Cafetalk tutors offer coaching sessions for other tutors -
from student recruitment, lesson content to learning to deal with the student demographic on
Cafetalk, there is a lot our tutors can teach you the Cafetalk staff cannot.
In order to take a lesson with another tutor, you will need a student account to which you either
need to transfer some of the points you have earned as a tutor or buy points as a student.
This is your chance to not only learn more about Cafetalk but to really grow as an online teacher
and educator!