Take On Only the Clients You Can Help

Imagine a private tutor named Odette Marlowe who teaches physics and math to high school students. She takes about eight families a year. To save herself a stream of emails, her website offers three packages of sessions, with a button to book and pay.

Mrs. Pendarvis hears Odette’s name from a friend. Her son, Rafe, is 16 and has a C in physics. That night, she buys 20 sessions on Odette’s website. Odette meets Rafe at the first session. He tells her that his mother booked it, and that he stopped doing the homework in October.

Odette teaches all 20 sessions, and she teaches them well. Rafe works through the problems with her each week and does none between sessions. In June, he still has a C. Mrs. Pendarvis does not book again. When another mother asks about Odette, she says, “She’s very good. It didn’t do anything for Rafe.” The other mother calls a different tutor.

Suppose instead that Odette’s website offers no packages. It says that each family starts with a conversation, with the parents and the student. At the end of it, Odette says whether she can help.

Mrs. Pendarvis writes, and Odette meets her and Rafe for 40 minutes. Odette asks Rafe to show her his last test. Then she asks what he wants from tutoring. “A B,” Rafe says. “So she stops asking.” Mrs. Pendarvis asks how many of Odette’s students go up a grade.

“Most of the ones who do the problems between sessions,” Odette says. “The ones who don’t usually stay where they were. So I can’t promise Rafe a grade. That part is his.” Then she says what she would ask. “I’d like to work with Rafe. I’ll ask him for two half hours of problems a week, between sessions. If he stops doing them, I’ll tell you both, and we’ll decide whether to go on.”

Rafe agrees, and Mrs. Pendarvis books the sessions. In June, Rafe has a B. When the other mother asks about Odette, Mrs. Pendarvis says, “She met Rafe before she’d take him on, and she told him what he’d have to do.” The other mother writes to Odette that evening.

Odette taught the same physics both times. What changed was how Rafe came to be her student. In the first version, his mother bought sessions the way anyone signs up for a class. Odette met Rafe after the money was paid, and nobody asked whether he would do the work. In the second, Odette decided whether to take him on. She told the family what her record could promise and what it could not. She also said what she would ask of Rafe.

So decide in a first conversation whether you can help a client, before anyone pays. Here is why that decision is part of what a wealthy client pays for. Here, too, is what an executive coach, an admissions consultant, and a New York tutor found.

A client’s results depend partly on the client

Here is the course’s view of why this trade is different. A private chef can cook a good dinner for any family. A coach, a tutor, or a consultant cannot get results alone. The student has to do the problems, and the executive has to change how he runs his meetings. So whether the work can succeed depends partly on the client in front of you.

That makes the decision to take a client on part of your work. A wealthy client is paying for one person’s judgment. The first decision that needs that judgment is whether you can help them at all. A package bought on a website skips that decision. The family has bought sessions, and nobody has decided whether sessions will work.

A yes from someone who could say no also means more to the client. Part of what a wealthy client buys is that not everyone can have it. A button that lets anyone buy your sessions tonight says the opposite, the way a calendar a stranger can book from does.

An executive coach turns down the work when one of three warning signs comes up

In 2013, an executive coach wrote an unsigned post on The Eblin Group’s blog about when not to hire a coach. By then, the coach had been coaching for more than 12 years. “Through the school of hard knocks, I’ve learned that these reasons are sure fire predictors of a failed coaching engagement,” the coach wrote. “That’s why when I hear one of them or sniff it out, I turn down the business.”

The post names three. The first is a leader the company has already given up on. The second is a client whose boss is the one who needs the coach. The third is coaching hired because “it’s the thing to do.”

The second sign came from a meeting the month before. A director of human resources asked the coach to meet her and her company’s president. The coach drove out and asked the president to tell his story. The coach concluded that the president was “a great guy and probably a pretty strong leader.” The coach also concluded that the person who needed coaching was the president’s boss, the chief executive.

So the coach “made some suggestions about consultants who specialize in advising the founders of family run businesses and declined the work.” The post also says what the coach looks for instead. “What I’m looking for is an executive who needs to get different results and understands that he or she will need to do some things differently to get the different results.”

The coach’s clients are companies, where a human resources director makes the first call. The step to a family hiring a tutor is the course’s own. Here is the step. A parent makes the first call, the way the director did. The student is the one who has to do things differently. So ask to meet the student, and ask what they want.

An admissions consultant tells wealthy families he deals in probabilities

Allen Koh is a college admissions consultant who works with wealthy families. In 2019, he told ABC7 News in San Francisco about a rival, Rick Singer. Singer was later charged in the admissions scheme known as Operation Varsity Blues. Koh met him when one family hired both men.

Koh described the difference between them. “He was confident about his ability to get kids in with certainty and, in my work, we don’t deal in certainties,” he said. “We deal in probabilities and we’re excellent about increasing probabilities but we can never get it to 100 percent.”

A couple of years later, Koh asked Singer for advice on a difficult case. Singer talked about a $500,000 donation to his foundation. Koh did not understand how it would work. “I couldn’t understand and so I walked and I told my client this is not for you,” he said.

Koh’s claim about his record says what it can do and what it cannot. He raises a student’s chances, and he does not promise a place. Singer offered certainty, which no honest consultant can offer. A record stated Koh’s way is a credential used well. Your degrees and your years still belong below your reason for the work. When a family asks about results, say what your record shows and what it depends on.

A New York tutor waits until a student needs him

Jesse Liebman is a tutor in New York City who has worked with students for nearly two decades. His students come from the city’s public and private schools, and from boarding schools across the country. In 2024, he wrote an essay on his newsletter about when tutoring helps.

Many parents like the idea of tutoring that heads off a problem before it starts, he wrote. He accepts that it can. Even so, “I’m cautious about starting tutoring before it is necessary because it risks prematurely interfering with the student’s self-development.” In his view, feeling lost in new material is normal, and a student needs to learn to work through it. Tutoring that starts too early can get in the way of that.

So part of deciding whether to take a student on is deciding whether the student needs you yet. When a family has nothing to decide yet, tell them so, and ask when they would like to hear from you.

Why a record that sounds like a promise goes wrong

Imagine a test-prep tutor named Benedict Arkwright who prepares students for the SAT. One evening, between two students, he rewrites the top of his website. “My students raise their scores by an average of 210 points.” The figure is true. It comes from students who started anywhere from 1000 to 1400.

Mr. Fairweather reads it. His daughter, Thea, scored 1380 on her first practice test. He adds 210 in his head and books a package. Thea works hard, and in October she scores 1470. At his club, a friend asks about Benedict. “He says 210 points,” Mr. Fairweather says. “We got 90.” The friend calls someone else.

Benedict’s mistake was giving an average as if it were a promise. He did not say what it depended on, so Mr. Fairweather added 210 to Thea’s 1380 and expected 1590. A student who starts near the top has less room to gain, and Benedict knew it. Thea’s 90 points were a good result, and the website made them sound like a failure.

The version that works gives the record with what it depends on. At the first conversation, Benedict says, “Students who start below 1200 often gain 150 points or more. Thea is starting at 1380, so I’d call 60 to 100 a good result.” Thea scores 1470. At the club, Mr. Fairweather says, “He told us 60 to 100, and she got 90.”

Turning a family away can cost less than taking them on

Turning down a family who wants to pay you can feel like money you cannot spare. It can also feel rude, as if you were judging their child or their company.

The coach learned “through the school of hard knocks” which engagements fail. A family you cannot help still pays you. Then, like Mrs. Pendarvis in the first version, they tell other parents that it did not work. The fee from one family can cost you the families who hear about it.

A no also does not have to judge anyone. The coach’s no was about who needed the coaching, not about whether the president was any good. It also came with suggestions of consultants who could help. Give the name of someone who does that work, and the family leaves with help instead of a plain no.

How to take on only the clients you can help

1. Take down any package or button that lets a new client pay before you have spoken. In its place, say how a client starts with you. Put it after the sentence that names the one kind of work you want to be known for. For example, a reading tutor can write, “Every family starts with a conversation with me, with the parents and the child. At the end, I’ll tell you whether I can help.”
2. Before your next first conversation, write two or three signs that a client will do well with you. Write the signs that the work will fail too, as the coach did. For example, a career coach might write that the client chose to come herself. A sign of failure might be a client whose firm has already decided to let her go.
3. In the conversation, ask the question that tests those signs. Ask it of the person who will do the work, not only the person paying. Then say at the end whether you can help. For example, a Spanish tutor can ask the student, “If you could fix one part of Spanish class by June, which part would you pick?”
4. When you can help, say so, and say what you will ask of the client. That way, the client knows what they have agreed to. For example, a business coach can say, “I’d like to work with you. I’ll ask you to send me your numbers every Friday. If they stop coming, I’ll ask why.”
5. When a client asks about your record, give it with what it depends on, as Koh does. Promise only what you control. For example, an admissions consultant can say, “Most of my families get into one of their top three colleges. I can’t promise that for Leo. I can promise that every application goes in two weeks early.”
6. When you cannot help, tell the client in the same conversation, and give a name. When the client does not need you yet, say that instead, and ask when to be in touch. For example, a voice coach can say, “Three weeks isn’t enough time for me to help with this audition. Mara Lund prepares singers for auditions, and I’d call her.”

Next: You will see how a long relationship with a powerful client changes over the years, and what it asks of you.