If You’re Starting a Teacher Business, Do THIS First!
Starting a teacher business is so much easier when you have th right steps in place
Starting a teacher business can be a daunting struggle. How are you to manage teaching and running a teacher business at the same time?!
Success in my teacher business did not happen overnight. Through trial and error, I put systems in place to help my teacher business grow and thrive.
In today’s blog, I'm going to give you some tips if you're starting a teacher business and what to do first. I started my teacher business back in 2018 and I've learned a lot along the way. There's a few things that I think you can avoid doing, and learn from our mistakes and I'm happy to share them with you today.
Starting a teacher business and being a full-time teacher has it’s struggles. (But it’s worth it!)
Balancing full-time teacher life with being a teacherpreneur was a struggle at first
I’m sure we’ve all Googled “Ways to make more money as a teacher.” I want to start by saying that balancing a full time teacher job is hard with a teacher business. There's going to be people along the way that make it look really glamorous to quit teaching and try to tell you that you can earn a bunch of money doing XY and Z. While maybe they were successful doing that, and maybe you could too (I'm not saying you can't), I think it's important to know that that's not everyday life. Keeping your teaching job while you're running your teacher business is oftentimes one of the smartest things you can do until your business is making enough money to where you can quit. Maybe you're like me, and you don't want to quit teaching because you love doing it. So hear me when I'm saying this, you can do it, you just have to have certain things in place to make yourself successful and learn from my mistakes so that you don't have to feel so stressed out. I'm in a good place now where I can run my business very efficiently during the school year and not feel stressed, but it's taken me some time to get there.
Putting systems in place for your online teacher business will help you during the school year!
Once I put systems in place, my business started to run smoother and I started making money
Before you do anything else, put systems in place. It's going to make your business run so much smoother. Let me give you an example: a system would be like scheduling all your social media posts a week ahead of time, or having a person that makes all your Pinterest pins and giving them all the quotes ahead of time. Using a task management system like Asana is super helpful and that's what I use with my virtual assistant. I put all her tasks in Asana which has deadlines so that's really helpful. If you’re working with somebody else at this point and having somebody help you create things for your business, I would highly recommend a system management place like Asana. Even if you haven’t hired anyone yet to help in your online teacher business, you can create tasks for yourself and that creates deadlines, which gives you a sense of urgency to get the important things done in your teacher business.
Combining what I was doing in the classroom with tutoring and Teachers Pay Teachers has been a game changer for my business
Combining what I was already doing in the classroom with tutoring and Teachers Pay Teachers has been a game changer for my business
Combining what you're already doing in the classroom (you're an amazing teacher) with starting a Teachers Pay Teachers store is a game changer. I'm always going to push you in that direction, because like I've said a million times you already have tons of resources you've created. They're on your external hard drive or on your Google Drive! You just need to figure out how to turn them into resources that sell and you will be so glad that you did. Making passive income on TpT will take your teacher business to the next level. You can make a lot of money that way and really secure your future with whatever choices you want to make, whether that’s staying in the classroom and creating resources, or maybe you want to quit and take your business to the next level.
Systems in your teacher business will be a game changer for your productivity.
You don’t have to spend every free hour working on your teacher business if you have systems in place
Lastly, I'm going to tell you that you don't have to spend every free waking hour working on your teacher business. This goes back to the first tip that I gave you. If you have those systems in place, then you won't have to be worried about your business all the time. I have been there where my mind cannot shut off; I just want to work on my business all the time. Largely due to the fact that I was doing random tasks here and there without a system and that's what really held me back from growing my business. I wasn't batching my blogs, I wasn't batching my YouTube content, batch creating TPT products. I recommend putting things into columns of tasks that are similar and get them done at the same time and don't stress yourself out. Make sure you have some time off after school and you're not always hustling on your business! Do the things that count first and worry about all the other nitty gritty stuff later because there's only a few things that are really going to move the needle on your business. If you're focusing on those, I promise you, your business will grow.
If you are looking to start a Teachers Pay Teachers store, but you're not exactly sure how to get started, join my FREE four day challenge! You'll get a video in your inbox every day with a workbook. I would love to see you there to help you grow your TPT store before the school year gets started.