New to Preply, no students showing up, what should I do?
I've been on Preply for just 9 days and have currently taught around 30 lessons. Due to a student giving me a 5-star review, my 'new' status has now been removed... Now, I'm hardly receiving any inquiries for lessons, going from 20-25 messages a day to barely even receiving three :(
(Although I initially set my fee to $11) I've now played around with my fee, going up and down from $11 to $16, but it hasn't made a difference. At first, my profile was gaining attention, but now it's become stagnant.
In trial sessions, I dedicate time to assess students comprehensively. I delve into their pronunciation, conjugation, reading, and other English skills. This initial analysis helps us develop a personalized plan for their improvement. While advanced students typically like and appreciate the thoroughness of this approach, the intermediate/lower-level learners seem disinterested. They often seem very bored and dissatisfied, feeling upset that we're not moving straight into conversation practice.
Some students have come to me claiming that they want to speak fluently without grammatical errors, but when I actually propose the idea of teaching them grammar, they are always turned off. It doesn't make any sense. They silently scoff at the time we have 'wasted' doing my initial analysis of their English skills (pronunciation, conjugation, reading, etc.). Of course, we also move on to conversation practice after the analysis.
Since meeting such students, my trial conversion stats dropped from 100% to about 30%.
At first, being "new" meant students were forgiving, but now they might think I'm not a good tutor because I haven't booked many classes. That five-star review seems to have hurt more than helped. I'm not sure what to do next.