How Juan Carlos Piñeros Built a Successful In-Home Tutor Doctor Territory in the Bogotá Market

Franchise background

Juan Carlos Piñeros is the franchisee for Tutor Doctor’s Bogotá, Colombia territory, which he purchased from a previous franchisee in July 2017.

For Piñeros, he knew that Tutor Doctor was right for him due to brand’s focus on education, its business model and the language-learning opportunities it provides to students. These all influenced his decision to buy the Bogotá territory, which at that point was an underperforming territory. The previous owner had owned the Bogotá territory since 2013, and according to Piñeros, that owner did not have much time to run the franchise. The territory was struggling, but the city was ripe with opportunity, and he and Piñeros started talking.

Today, Piñeros owns the one territory, which covers two different areas of the city of Bogotá. (Tutor Doctor also has a presence in Medellín and Barranquilla.)

Piñeros’ took over in August 2017, and his territory has seen great success since he took the lead.

“There’s a big opportunity for Tutor Doctor in Colombia,” he said. “We have a lot of potential.”

Business growth strategies

One major step Piñeros took was to hire more staff.

“The previous owner didn’t have much time to run the business, so we hired some new people, including an academic coordinator and an assistant,” Piñeros said. “That helped the business.”

When he took over the underperforming territory, Piñeros decided to take advantage of marketing services offered by Tutor Doctor in his effort to turn the territory around. He used the same protocol Tutor Doctor uses, as well as the marketing materials Tutor Doctor recommended. He also used PPC to target families that may be in need of tutoring services.

Piñeros also leveraged the knowledge of his fellow franchisees, especially those in Latin America. He spoke to a master franchisee in Latin America, as well as fellow Tutor Doctor franchisees in Costa Rica and Chile.

What really proved to be a turning point, though, was attending Tutor Doctor’s franchisee training in Toronto.

“The most important part was training in Toronto,” Piñeros said. “I had some training with the former franchisee of my territory, and he was working with me, but after that I went to Tutor Doctor’s training in Toronto and learned the Tutor Doctor process. Training for me was really, really important.”

Marketing was the most important part of his training, Piñeros said, and he valued what he learned about Tutor Doctor’s marketing process and the company’s core values. That, he said, was very important to him and inspired him to do things the Tutor Doctor way and to keep working at improving his territory.

The result: Piñeros’ territory has nearly doubled the number of students it serves and the number of tutors it uses.

“We now have more students,” Piñeros said. “We have 70 active students. We have a network of approximately 30 active tutors that had tutoring hours last month.”

Tutor Doctor’s corporate team is thrilled with the results.

“Juan Carlos’ experience with Tutor Doctor is an excellent example of how franchisees can find success when they follow the established system, regardless of where they live,” Tutor Doctor Franchise Development Director Dennis Campbell said. “By using the resources that are provided to Tutor Doctor franchisees around the globe and showing perseverance, Juan Carlos proved that the Tutor Doctor model can work anywhere.”

Community partnerships

Piñeros’ territory has also created partnerships with community groups, businesses and schools.

“We have created some alliances that have been important for us in schools,” he said. “We show our materials, talk to parents and partner with schools. We also visit businesses, and we can offer our services to companies, who give benefits for their employees.”

In addition to providing tutoring services to children, Piñeros’ territory works with companies who want to provide English and Spanish as a second language to their employees. He pointed out how many companies hire foreigners who don’t speak Spanish, so they offer Spanish classes through Tutor Doctor to help their employees acclimate to life in Colombia.

A lover of languages

In addition to his native Spanish, Piñeros speaks English, French, German and Portuguese. The ability to provide students with language services through his Tutor Doctor franchise was a big draw for him. “The opportunity to provide language instruction is something I consider very important,” he said.

As someone who studied music composition and guitar in university, Piñeros is also thrilled to offer music tutoring through his Tutor Doctor franchise. “We adapt Tutor Doctor’s free consultation to music, and some of our business involves music students, so that’s another interesting line we have,” he said.

The discovery process

Piñeros liked how open Tutor Doctor was with him when he was still in the discovery process, and how they connected him with other franchisees to learn more about the business as he decided whether the brand was the right fit for him.

“We could talk with other franchisees,” Piñeros said. “They were very open with us about the business and their stories, so that was also very important. The framework, the franchise consultants - those were the main things that helped us to decide to buy the franchise.”

Piñeros continues to maintain relationships with his fellow franchisees, and he appreciates how Tutor Doctor provides such a strong network.

“We talk about strategies, what’s working and what’s not working,” he said. “The network we have access to through the Tutor Doctor franchise is very, very important.”

Tutor Doctor is an in-home tutoring service that pairs tutors with school-age students in a variety of subjects. Tutor Doctor also offers adult tutoring, special needs tutoring and veteran program. The startup costs for a Tutor Doctor franchise range from $68,500 to $101,700. The franchise fee is $49,700.