How to sell yourself as a TEFL teacher in Spain

Have you ever wondered how to get more high quality TEFL classes and start building a name for yourself? I think we’ve all been there; thinking and thinking some more about what to do to increase our timetable and fill in those gaps that sometimes feel like such a waste of time. Whilst the TEFL teaching market is competitive, teachers tend to be very low key about marketing themselves and seeing themselves as a brand.  This article gives you some tips to help you stand out from the crowd and build a professional TEFL brand.

Business Cards

First of all: Bear in mind that people do judge a book by its cover, we are human! If you meet a potential clients, how do you give them your contact details? Hardly any teachers have business cards which are a cheap and professional option to show you mean business. For around €35 Euros aprox you can get 500 cards! Shop around to get the best deals. Local shop often do deals and you get to view it before they do the print run.  Online printers can also be an affordable option (moo.com, vistaprint.es). Remember to keep your cards simple and add only the relevant information. What’s most important? Name, logo, phone number, e-mail address. Also, it’d be good if you added a photo. It’s so much easier to remember someone when seeing their face! Ensure you’ve got a strap-line and to keep it short and catchy!

Flyers

Flyers can also be useful for putting up in your local area or putting in your neighbors’ post boxes. Nothing like the last class of the day being in your local area!  Remember that nobody looks at flyers for more than about 15 seconds, so keep it brief! Edit it down to the crucial elements you need to convey! Organize the information (bullet points, text boxes, etc.) and come up with a great, catchy headline. By reading it, your customer should have an idea of what you do. List the benefits, (not more than 5), proofread several times and include a call to action! Let them know the specials such as a 10% discount for paying for the full month in advance. Check and recheck your contact details to make sure they are correct.  Last, but not least, get a testimonial from an existing client to seal the deal! We have used saxoprint.es and they are very cheap and great quality.

Website/blog

Having your own website or blog is now accessible to everyone especially if you use WordPress. It is a great way to attract clients and to look very professional.  You can buy cheap domains from godaddy.com or have a WordPress blog.  For a website, you only need around 5 pages with your information, client testimonials, pricing guide and some photos. If you go for a blog, choose a theme! By having an overall theme it will help you stay organized and focused in your posts and drive more traffic to your blog by people legitimately interested in learning more about your experiences. Once you have a focused blog theme, you can create new topics/tags to direct them to other posts.

Make sure you update it regularly! Strive for posting on a weekly basis if not more often. You want to keep people interested and in order to do that you have to keep feeding them new material.  Many bloggers even post daily. There are many ways to generate valuable and varied post content such as Interview posts (interview students, other teachers, etc), photo journal posts, anecdotes, reviews, etc. You can also use it as a homework tool for students.  They can post answers and questions which in turn drives more traffic to your site.

When you enter a new post into wordpress you have the option to tag it with #’s. If it’s a teaching article, tag it with as many relevant tag words as possible. The more tag words you have, the more likely it is that your article will come up when people search for that topic on the internet.

It is in the detail

Last, but not least… whenever applying for a job or uploading information about yourself, make sure that you check every single detail. Write down your relevant work experience, contact details, add a photo and take care of the format! Nobody will hire someone who has misspellings on their CV/blog or that hasn’t taken his/her time to standardize the format of their CV and cover letter.

TEFL teaching in Spain or anywhere else in the world is no different to any other profession so sell yourself to ensure you stand out as a professional and committed TEFL teacher. This will help you increase your hourly rate and find good quality clients.