Week 1 · Saturday
Build immediate credibility with skeptical parents by showing what happens when the diagnostic gets skipped — making the free diagnostic feel non-negotiable instead of optional, and warming up viewers for the booking motion later in the month.
Posting window: Saturday, 8:00 PM PT
Posting times shown in Pacific Time (PT) — adjust to your audience's timezone in your scheduler.
Hook options
Pick the one you’ll use — the script opener updates to match
It's Thursday night and I'm refunding a session.
I skipped a diagnostic once. It cost a family a grade.
Passing the test isn't the win. Sometimes it's the problem.
Stop letting a Friday test decide how tutoring starts.
Nobody talks about the tutor who paints over the gap.
Script
Opener (0:00 – 0:10)
It's Thursday night and I'm refunding a session. The kid had just failed a test I helped him prep for the week before.
Body
His parents came to me in a hurry. He had a test that Friday, and they asked me to skip the diagnostic and just work the chapter with him. I said yes. We spent three sessions drilling that chapter. He passed the test. Everyone felt good. And then two weeks later he failed the next one, because the real gap was negative numbers, and we had painted right over it. So I refunded the third session, because I had taken money to fix a problem I never went looking for. Now every student starts with the 40-minute diagnostic. Especially the families who tell me there is no time for it — those are the ones who need it most.
Close / CTA
If you've had a tutor before and nothing really changed, I'd love to know what that felt like from your side of the table.
≈ 166 words · about 67 s at single-take pace
Production paths
- 1.Set your phone vertical on a tripod or leaned against books at chest height, camera roughly at eye level, framed from mid-chest up with a little headroom.
- 2.Shoot in a spot in the studio where the background reads like the workspace — a whiteboard, a stack of workbooks, or the table you actually run diagnostics at — slightly out of focus behind you.
- 3.Face a window or soft lamp so the light lands on your face from the front, not behind you. No overhead ceiling light directly above.
- 4.Record with the phone's built-in mic, but stay within arm's length of the phone so the audio stays tight. Do a 10-second test and play it back before the real take.
- 5.This is a single continuous take — read the full script through once as a warm-up, then record 3–4 back-to-back takes without stopping between them. The story lives in the pacing on the line 'he passed the test' — let that one breathe before you say 'and then two weeks later he failed the next one.'
- 6.Pick the take where the pause before 'and then two weeks later' actually lands and where the last line feels like you're asking, not performing.
- 7.In CapCut: import the take, trim only the dead space at the head and tail, no jump cuts inside the take.
- 8.Add auto-captions, restyle to a clean sans-serif at the bottom third, and correct any misheard words — especially 'diagnostic' and 'negative numbers.'
- 9.Optional: at the line 'I refunded the third session,' hold that sentence full-screen as a text overlay for two seconds so it registers as the turn.
- 10.Export at 1080p, 9:16, and save one still frame from the opener for the thumbnail (see thumbnail note below).
Platform captions
The one time I skipped the diagnostic, I ended up refunding a session two weeks later. He passed the test we prepped for. He failed the next one — because the real gap was two topics back, and we had painted over it instead of finding it. That is the whole reason every student now starts with the 40-minute diagnostic. Especially the families who tell me there is no time for it. If you've had a tutor before and nothing really changed, tell me what that looked like from your side. I read every one.
Hashtags
I refunded a session once because I skipped the diagnostic. He passed the test we prepped for and failed the next one — the real gap was two topics back. Every student starts with the 40-minute diagnostic now. Especially the families in a hurry.
Hashtags
Thumbnail brief
Build this in Canva — it's a design brief, not a prompt to paste.
Save a still of your face from the recording (Record → Save a frame) and open it in Canva — the brief builds everything around the face. Which frame: Grab a frame from the opener while you say 'I'm refunding a session' — eyes to the lens, mouth mid-word or just closing, expression flat and serious, not smiling.
- Crop
- Crop the saved still to 9:16 vertical. Keep you on the left two-thirds of the frame from mid-chest up, with headroom above and the workspace background visible on the right.
- Words
- I refunded the session.
- Placement
- Overlay text stacked on the right third of the frame at eye level — 'I refunded' on the top line, 'the session.' on the line below it. Leave your face unobstructed.
- Colors
- Overlay text in warm off-white with a thin charcoal drop shadow so it reads clean against the workspace background. If you have a Lanternview accent color in your Canva brand kit, use it as a small underline stroke beneath 'the session.'
- Element
- One small element only: a subtle horizontal underline beneath 'the session.' in the accent color. No arrows, no circles, no emojis.
Scheduling
Tool: Later
- 1.Open Later and create a new post scheduled for Saturday at 8:00 PM PT.
- 2.Add the exported vertical video to both the Instagram Reels channel and the TikTok channel in the same post group.
- 3.Paste the Instagram caption into the Instagram Reels field and the TikTok caption into the TikTok field — do not use the same caption for both.
- 4.For Instagram Reels: upload the still frame from the opener as the custom cover so the thumbnail you designed in Canva is what shows on the grid.
- 5.For TikTok: pick a cover frame from within the video at roughly the 1-second mark — Later's cover selector shows a scrubber.
- 6.Turn on 'Share to Feed' for the Reel so it also lands on your Instagram profile grid.
- 7.Double-check the scheduled time reads 8:00 PM PT (not UTC), then confirm the post.
Lead capture
Where this should drive
This piece is a top-of-funnel credibility build in week one — the CTA is a soft ask for comments, not a booking push. Skeptical parents need to see the honesty story before they trust the diagnostic offer, so this piece earns the reply and the follow, and the diagnostic booking asks come later in the month (piece 10, 11, 12). What you do with the leads this piece generates: watch the comments for parents describing prior tutoring experiences that did not work, and reply with a short question rather than a pitch — those replies are the beginning of the diagnostic conversation, not a direct link drop.