Online Tutor Ideal Virtual Business

The success of the two giants in the tutoring industry --Kumon and Sylvan -- attest to the demand for after-school teaching skills. 

Clients of the two primary tutor franchises seek assistance for their children for a variety of reasons.  For some, it is to enable their child to keep pace with classmates.  For others, it is to ensure that their child is best equipped for advanced education.  In several instances, these parents are opting for private schools for their children in the middle and high school years, rather than throughout the child’s entire school life.  Others are looking to explore and stimulate specific skills and interests of the child, to provide that child with a stimulating learning environment.

The Kumon and Sylvan tutoring programs, though, place the urban client at a distinct advantage over rural students. Whether the rural student requires remedial tutoring or specific, focused one-on-one mentoring, distance becomes problematic.  In essence, rural students do not have access to the quality of extra-curricular training that is available to urban students.

That disadvantage is an opportunity, however, for rural educators and advanced students.

Most jurisdictions, from states to provinces in North America, have specific licence requirements and certification processes for teachers and special education instructors.  In spite of that requirement, an apparent gap exists in the licensing process that allows online tutors to be exempt from those criteria, in most areas.  That means that anyone can become a tutor!

Recognizing the dearth of one-on-one personal education support for rural youth, a creative rural entrepreneur could easily set up an online mentoring program that allows youth in need to tap into the resource at the click of a mouse or touch of a pad. While, ideally, the tutors employed in this system should be teachers and education students in a university program, the opportunity is available for retired teachers, top-achieving students and even laypersons with specific skills and knowledge.

The program could allow for video conferencing, text interaction, self-guided training and teaching regimens and email interaction with the student.  By setting specific times each day, the mentor can work with a range of students throughout his available free time, and the student can pick and choose the most appropriate time in which to engage with the instructor.  This makes for a very personalized approach, and an actual advantage over bricks-and-mortar institutions.

The online tutoring business can offer limited curriculum and subjects, or a broad range, utilizing the talents of educators that are available world-wide, instead of in a specific geographic area, as is required for conventional tutoring businesses.

The degree of flexibility that an online tutoring program offers is significant.  Clients can be recruited face-to-face, locally, regionally, or across the country, continent and globe.  This opens up a wider range of open time slots, greater student base and greater pool of qualified educators.  Yet, it can be established, simply and inexpensively, in the basement of a rural business person in any part of the world. 

Online tutoring offers a real competitive edge over conventional tutor programs, at a fraction of the cost of conventional programming.

Best Price Program Offers Best Deal For Rural Entrepreneurs

The Internet has opened doors for rural development that had remained locked for many years.  Historically, one of the impediments to rural business growth has been the lack of access to competitive markets and supply lines.  Distance from distribution networks has limited the ability to obtain the lowest prices on supplies, or demand the typical urban prices on products and services.

High speed Internet access has  reversed that situation, though.  Now, suppliers and manufacturers in rural settings can produce many goods for less than city businesses, due to lower wages, lower facility costs and competitive energy rates.  These savings are not offset by transportation costs.

While, until the 1990s, the level of technological skill has lagged, that gap is closing, with more rural youth obtaining advanced skills and education that can be applied to rural business opportunities.

Location, location, location as a mantra has lost much of its lustre for new developments.  While many of the emerging rural businesses rely on local raw materials for their innovative products, others must source suppliers from out of the region to be truly competitive.  Similarly, marketing of goods no longer is limited to the immediate region of production.  Markets and suppliers can readily be located, worldwide.

One of the most obvious examples of global reach is alibaba.com. A website that lists thousands of suppliers from China and the far east, it does not limit itself to one or two product lines, but is inclusive of any product or service that is available from that region.  Its clients are found worldwide, with a huge base in North America.  Biodiesel operations in the prairies, alongside architects from Quebec or electronics manufacturers from Newark source suppliers on the Alibaba website.

This access to low-cost supply lines, available to anyone and everyone, means that cost of goods is more uniform, regardless of the location of manufacture.  Similarly, a wealth of global distribution sites are available to market goods.  Alternatively, a rural producer, supplier or manufacturer can reach into worldwide markets at the click of a button.  One western Canada grower markets oats to Ogilvie in South America!

But the cornucopia of supply line resources and markets comes with a huge drawback: the size and variety of available sources.  The time to evaluate and access each of these suppliers can be overwhelming.  Therein lies an opportunity for an enterprising entrepreneur, who might well be a rural businessman rather than an urban one.

By compiling and filtering a variety of suppliers, one could, with modest effort, develop a very substantial database of products, listed by reliability, cost, customer service, shipping time and so on.  Customers who are looking for a specific product, service or raw material could pay a nominal fee to this database operator, who would provide a number of competitive price and product quotes, establish the connection to the supplier, and even facilitate purchases.

To enter the marketplace by offering “best price quotes” on a vast array of items would be prohibitively time consuming and labour intensive.  However, by focusing on regional business needs and developing a database of suppliers for a few hundred products and then expanding that list by a hundred or so  each week, an operator could easily compile a catalogue of almost half a million items within a year.  The potential to offer this service globally  is, like the research required to asset up the competitive network, only a few clicks away, relying on a website with the reach similar to Alibaba.

While a concept such as this is easily established, without disadvantage, in a rural environment, it is not limited to any geographic location, since not product physically is filtered through that operation. 

To obtain, at no charge, additional information and guidance on establishing such an undertaking.  Contact us via our blog contact form.

Cross-Docking Business Opportunities

In the 1990s, cross-dock facilities proliferated in larger centres, as wholesalers sought cost-effective distribution outlets that would reduce payroll and shipping costs to the small retailers dotting the retail world.

As larger retailers either swallowed smaller mom-and-pops or overwhelmed them into closing their doors, the need for cross-docking appeared to diminish.

In the Canadian food services industry, any one region of the country is dominated by, at best, three large distributors.  In smaller regions, such as the Manitoba/Saskatchewan/Northern Ontario market, those distributors also manage more than 88% of the retail grocery trade.  In that same market, two primary distributors dominate the restaurant sector, with two others sharing about one third of the market of the larger two. In that mix, dozens of small suppliers and distributors attempt to compete.  This scenario is replicated across other parts of the country.

Several independent cross-dock outlets have closed their doors in the past dozen years, as the suppliers and the dominant distributors turned their attention from retailers to independent distributors.  Caught in that war has been the trucking industry.

Two years ago, Walmart refocused their distribution mechanism toward in-house shipping, as opposed to their long-standing practice of using independent trucking firms to haul goods across the nation.  The ultimate effect will be to squeeze the independent truckers out of the picture, even though the consumer possibly will see a reduction in prices.

The confluence of this series of recent events seems to be leading to an inevitable result: the elimination of local warehousing and shipping opportunities.  That, in fact, is not either inevitable or even probable.

While cross docking traditionally has been focused on urban locations, a major opportunity has opened for rural facilities.

Many suppliers to rural grocers and restaurants currently charge a levy, or delivery charge that runs from a base of $35 within a 50 kilometre radius to $100 or more, per delivery.  That fee is significant to a small town retailer, and often stimulates that retailer to take one day each week to journey to the nearby city to purchase supplies.  But that, in turn, require that the merchant arrange for employees to work in his or her stead for that day.  Thus, the $35 saving may be lost, unless the owner is able to offset that loss by finding competitive prices that result in savings.  This conundrum has led to most rural buyers turning to major wholesalers or distributors for their entire supply, which, consequently results in higher inventory costs.

The higher inventory costs force higher prices onto the consumer, who often responds by redirecting his buying dollars into the larger city.  The local retailer is now in an even poorer position to be competitive.  Local restaurants, though, tend to emerge from the increased food cost problem unscathed, as locals remain loyal to local restaurants.

In order to compensate for the increased costs, rural food merchants need to be able to capitalize on competitive pricing.  This is only possible if the distribution network offers the full range of competing products.  Therefore, the optimum arrangement would be to establish cross-dock locations at the margins of the base-rate radius provided by the supplier.  Typically, that is 50 kilometres. 

By setting up a depot at the perimeter of the distribution line, that depot can order a significant quantity of goods, thus sharing the one-time delivery fee over a much larger quantity of goods.  Instead of a $35 charge on a $1,000 purchase, for instance, the depot may be able to purchase $20,000, with the delivery fee spread over that amount.

By purchasing bulk quantities, the cross-dock depot also is able to capitalize on bulk buying deals, further reducing the costs.  Now, the depot can operate profitably, while offering lower costs to the remote rural retailers.

A second business opportunity opens itself through this cross-dock system: the ability to provide bulk-buy deals directly to the consumer.  This concept was tested in the Whiteshell resort region of Manitoba a few years ago, and proved to be very successful.

By providing a low-cost (3% of gross) delivery service (along with a share of the bulk-buy savings) directly to resort restaurants, the single-truck operator was able to generate net (not gross) revenues of $350 per day.  Later in that summer, he added direct-to-consumer deliveries, as well.  Individuals and families would attend at one location in each community at a specified time, to pick up the orders that they had placed.  This expanded his net revenues to $475 per day, by using two trucks. 

While the cross-docking concept requires some warehouse and cooler/freezer space, the start-up costs are very modest, and the cash flow immediate.

If you would like further details (at no charge) on setting up a cross-dock business in your region, contact us through our blog site listed in the resource box below.

Bartering is Just What You Bargained For

Bartering conjures up images of trading chickens for a house call by the rural family doctor.  Yet, barter networks have emerged as vehicles for a reported transaction value of more than $8 billion per year, plus the billions more swap and trade transactions that go unreported.  From personal to corporate transactions, from in-person to online exchanges, the barter infrastructure offers significant opportunities to move goods outside the realm of cash and credit contracts.

For the most part, trade exchanges flourish where there is a diversity of products or services being offered and, consequently, are focused mainly upon urban networking. Bartering may have begun as a mechanism to allow businesses, countries and individuals with limited cash flow but access to desired goods or services to participate in and benefit from a capitalistic market, but has evolved as a valued way of moving surplus inventory or capabilities stock expeditiously.  It is estimated that more than 350,000 businesses in the USA alone participate in trade exchanges.  The International Reciprocal Trade Association boasts membership of more than 80 corporate barter networks around the world, the National association of Trade Exchanges lists 60 more, with Gigafree.com claiming to have identified over 700 personal and business networks.

The ease with which a barter network can be set up makes it attractive for neophytes to the process.  Guided packages that detail the steps involved are readily available online.

In addition to ease of setup, linking of these myriad exchanges through formal and informal agreements mean that small groups can access a much broader array of goods and services.  Local operations easily can tap into the national and international exchanges, often paying only a nominal amount to participate.

Because of the ability to expand the reach of modular exchanges, the very nominal start-up costs and efforts and the appeal of cashless transactions, barter networks are ideally suited to rural economies.  However, it is ironic that, with the variety of unique products and services available and the propensity to turn to community for support, rural entrepreneurs have been reluctant to establish their own unique brand of barter. 

Perhaps it is the misperception that the only goods that they have to offer to each other are farm goods.  Yet, aside from the rural retailers and service providers that have inventory and services to trade, individuals and farmers also have a wealth of goods that may be exchanged.  Equipment and personal assets are only a few of the valued goods that could be bartered, while produce of varying grades, livestock, and even leases and rentals on production equipment make excellent offerings.

To set up a network involves little more than a good bookkeeping software package, an Internet connection, a website and a coordinator to arrange and list the items to be bartered.  In some instances, organizers may require a refundable deposit, to allow for a credit account to be set up for each exchange member.

Similar to the eager online entrepreneur who traded a giant paperclip upwards and laterally sixteen times in order to acquire a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan, bartering offers latent potential to generate profits and benefits where none were previously seen.  Realistically, an old tractor may become a holiday excursion to the Caribbean, or a few hours of babysitting nurtured into a substantial discount on a vehicle.  The possibilities are endless for the trader, but invaluable for the rural communities who are seeking ways to stimulate enterprise in their regions.

Barter Networks Provide Link to Rural Economic Development

Bartering conjures up images of trading chickens for a house call by the rural family doctor.  Yet, barter networks have emerged as vehicles for a reported transaction value of more than $8 billion per year, plus the billions more swap and trade transactions that go unreported.  From personal to corporate transactions, from in-person to online exchanges, the barter infrastructure offers significant opportunities to move goods outside the realm of cash and credit contracts.

For the most part, trade exchanges flourish where there is a diversity of products or services being offered and, consequently, are focused mainly upon urban networking. Bartering may have begun as a mechanism to allow businesses, countries and individuals with limited cash flow but access to desired goods or services to participate in and benefit from a capitalistic market, but has evolved as a valued way of moving surplus inventory or capabilities stock expeditiously.  It is estimated that more than 350,000 businesses in the USA alone participate in trade exchanges.  The International Reciprocal Trade Association boasts membership of more than 80 corporate barter networks around the world, the National association of Trade Exchanges lists 60 more, with Gigafree.com claiming to have identified over 700 personal and business networks.

The ease with which a barter network can be set up makes it attractive for neophytes to the process.  Guided packages that detail the steps involved are readily available online.

In addition to ease of setup, linking of these myriad exchanges through formal and informal agreements mean that small groups can access a much broader array of goods and services.  Local operations easily can tap into the national and international exchanges, often paying only a nominal amount to participate.

Because of the ability to expand the reach of modular exchanges, the very nominal start-up costs and efforts and the appeal of cashless transactions, barter networks are ideally suited to rural economies.  However, it is ironic that, with the variety of unique products and services available and the propensity to turn to community for support, rural entrepreneurs have been reluctant to establish their own unique brand of barter. 

Perhaps it is the misperception that the only goods that they have to offer to each other are farm goods.  Yet, aside from the rural retailers and service providers that have inventory and services to trade, individuals and farmers also have a wealth of goods that may be exchanged.  Equipment and personal assets are only a few of the valued goods that could be bartered, while produce of varying grades, livestock, and even leases and rentals on production equipment make excellent offerings.

To set up a network involves little more than a good bookkeeping software package, an Internet connection, a website and a coordinator to arrange and list the items to be bartered.  In some instances, organizers may require a refundable deposit, to allow for a credit account to be set up for each exchange member.

Similar to the eager online entrepreneur who traded a giant paperclip upwards and laterally sixteen times in order to acquire a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan, bartering offers latent potential to generate profits and benefits where none were previously seen.  Realistically, an old tractor may become a holiday excursion to the Caribbean, or a few hours of babysitting nurtured into a substantial discount on a vehicle.  The possibilities are endless for the trader, but invaluable for the rural communities who are seeking ways to stimulate enterprise in their regions.

Leapfrogging Rural Development

Worldchanging.com describes leapfrogging as the phenomenon that occurs when underdeveloped countries skip a generation or more of technology, to embrace a cutting-edge system.  This, for example, has occurred in Africa, where hundreds of thousands of citizens have gained access to cellular telephones and the array of applications that are contingent upon that equipment, without ever having constructed a mile of copper wire to carry land-based telephone systems.  It has occurred, as well, where those same telephones provide access to pseudo-banking facilities, barter and money exchange schemes that stimulate local economies.

In rural North America, that leapfrogging could occur on select frontiers, if local and regional developers respond to the emerging opportunities.

For the past fifteen to twenty years, remote and rural communities have fought to gain access to traditional Internet and hard-wired communications systems, including cable television.  Satellite television has offered a modest alternative, while tower wireless has reached into semi-remote communities.  Wimax, though, offers 100% penetration where conventional line-of-site wireless fails.  At the same time, 802.11g and 802.11n wireless radio connect means that Wimax capabilities, built into every new laptop, could be used to establish fully mobile telephone service, through the Internet, at a fraction of the cost of 3G or 4G cellular mobile systems.

By leapfrogging hard-wired systems, remote communities could build  a regional network to rival national wireless providers, and enter the global business community by building virtual offices.

Over the past two decades, natural gas providers have reached pipeline tentacles into smaller rural communities, but still have thousands more yet to service.  Their petro-heat solutions, though, may have already reached the stage of obsolescence, without ever being implemented.   Dozens of forward-looking communities are attacking the energy problem head on, by building closed loop heating and energy networks with geothermal, solar/photovoltaic and wind power systems.

A reverse form of connectivity ( a dis-connectivity, in reality) has been taking place as rail spur lines have been decommissioned across North America, limiting the options of farm growers to move their produce to markets.  Rather than be victimized by the shift, these producers have built biodiesel and ethanol plants, eliminating the need to transport their product to distant markets.  At the same time, they have disconnected, in part, the petroleum suppliers that have called the farmers “clients.”  It is a type of reverse leapfrogging.

Distance education is a variation on leapfrogging, eschewing conventional classrooms in favour of more flexible and portable education strategies at all levels.  This allows for a two-way flow of teaching, with the potential for education directed inward toward urban centres from the country, as well as outward.  It is not just the information flow, but the access to live video from any point where the Internet can be accessed.  That opens the door to hundreds of business possibilities.

In order to employ leapfrog strategies effectively, rural development needs to be less focused on what they lack in terms of conventional infrastructure, access or processes, and what they can forego in those areas while implementing forward-looking development projects.

Where will the next open door to leapfrog industry or technology present itself?  Will it be in off-the-pavement transportation, or in ecological conversion technologies?  Will it be in unique energy transmission processes or in innovative shelter systems that are independent of urban manufacturing environments?  We simply do not know.  However, as technology breakthroughs occur, rural entrepreneurs and community leaders should look away from seeking to emulate city systems, and explore new opportunities to bypass existing dinosaurs and location-focused infrastructure.