Grow with Angie and April: A Podcast for Teacherpreneurs

Latest Episodes:

A Teacher Seller's Guide to Instagram Reels Mar 04, 2022

In this episode, Angie and April speak with Katie and Chynell from Routine Your Reels to help teacher sellers navigate how to use Instagram Reels in their marketing. Join in on the conversation in the mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. We’re excited to have a couple guests on the podcast with us to dive into another one of those topics that push us out of our comfort zones—Instagram Reels. Chynell and Katie built the Routine Your Reels membership program. I was part of the beta group and am excited to share this resource with other TpTers. Katie Brockmeyer is a photographer and videographer for teacher sellers. Chynelle Moore is a marketing strategist and business coach for “teachers turned accidental entrepreneurs” at Routine Your Dream. The two met on Instagram and eventually created the membership program Routine Your Reels. As they were learning Reels, they knew they wanted to help make it easier for teacher sellers. The Basics of Instagram Reels Reels is the new kid on the Instagram block. Regular posts are the OG of Instagram and still work for engaging those in your audience that don’t enjoy video content. Stories are great for engaging and nurturing your existing followers. Reels have quickly become the new way of reaching new people on the platform and growing your audience. Unlike Instagram Video (formerly known as IGTV), Reels are designed to be super quick videos. The ideal length of a Reel is just 7-15 seconds. While they can be as long as 60 seconds, knowing the shorter ones perform bests is a great reason to remove some of the pressure from yourself by keeping it short. Katie and Chynell love them because you don’t have to dive into full production mode the way you do for YouTube videos. Instead, it’s short-form video marketing that is easy to produce. What Content Performs Best on Reels? You’re probably familiar with the dancing, finger-pointing type of Reel. While many of the Reels we see on the platform have more of an entertainment feel, they don’t have to be just for entertainment. You can also use them for marketing your products and building trust with your followers. Your Reels can be used to share your expertise on something. Or you can use it to share a quick tip or two on a problem your niche market faces. You can bust common misconceptions your niche audience has. It’s important to remember what information is helpful to your market. It doesn’t have to be dancing and pointing. You can also just turn on your camera and start talking. While you can use your Reels to showcase your products, Katie and Chynell have found the ones that perform best are the ones that show your face. Consumers don’t always want to see you marketing your products. Instead, they want to know who the person is behind the products. Showing your face on your Reels allows people to connect with you, so they’ll want to connect with your products. It helps build that trust factor. As a TpT seller, the goal is to reach the target market. Your goal isn’t to go viral and get two million views. So, it’s OK if you’re not going to do something crazy. Focus on who you’re trying to attract instead of worrying too much about what it takes to go viral. Can I Repurpose My TikTok or YouTube Videos? Yes and no. When Reels first came out, there were a lot of videos that even had the TikTok watermark on them, but things are changing. When it comes to your return on investment, you’re going to be better off creating videos specifically for Reels. The people who

Making the Switch to Full-Time TpT with Guest Chrissie Rissmiller Feb 18, 2022

In this episode, Angie and April are speaking with Chrissie Rissmiller from Undercover Classroom. She recently transitioned to become a full-time TpTer. Together, they’re answering the commonly asked questions TpTers have about the transition to going full time. Join in on the conversation in the mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. We have been hearing from a lot of TpTers with questions about going full time. With the difficulty of the past two years and how teachers have been treated, it’s easy to see why. Previously we did a podcast episode for people thinking of making the transition, however, we were still new to being full time TpTers ourselves and were still figuring things out. We decided to do a new episode answering the commonly asked questions. Here to join us on the episode is Chrissie Rissmiller from Undercover Classroom. She has been full time in her TpT business for just over a year now. Between the three of us, we’re able to cover a wide range of experiences and are happy to share our experiences. We’re going to jump right into your questions. What made you decide to leave teaching and go full time with TpT? The answer is a little different for each of us: Chrissie hit a point where she was burned out between running a business and teaching. It wasn’t sustainable long-term. Her goal was to teach for 30 years, and she had become comfortable living on her teaching income and the additional income from her TpT store. In 2020, she created a digital resource and had an increase in her TpT income, but she was still teaching. Her blood pressure was high, and she began getting migraines. During remote learning, she and her husband (who is also a teacher) were teaching out of separate spaces at home while their own children were struggling on their own with virtual school in their rooms. She felt like a terrible mom and terrible person Over the summer of 2020, she learned about an opportunity that would allow her to take a leave from teaching while earning half her salary since she had children at home doing online learning. She took it from August to December and did some soul searching. In December, she retired at the age of 45 with almost 24 years in teaching. You can hear more of my and Angie’s stories in our previous podcast episode. But the quick recap is that Angie began having health issues. She was overwhelmed and struggled with feeling like she wasn’t good enough as a mom, wife, or teacher. Her migraines were out of control. All of this led to her making the transition to full-time TpT. I had gotten used to having the TpT income on top of my teaching salary and enjoyed it, but I found out I was pregnant with twins. The cost of daycare was basically my salary from teaching. In addition, we had a new principal who wasn’t supportive and ¾ of the staff ended up leaving. In January of that year, I let them know I wasn’t going to be coming back and ended up being able to go on maternity leave early. When the summer ended, I never went back. How many hours do you work on your TpT store? While we thought we would work more on our TpT stores that first year, we didn’t. We all found that during the first year, we didn’t work a crazy number of hours. I had my twins, which took up more of my time, and Angie and Chrissie both needed some time to recover from the overwhelm and physical toll teaching had taken on them. Now that Chrissie is into her second year, she works around 30-35 hours a week on her business. On average, she works about 5 hours a day. In 2021, she still experienced a 12% growth in sales, but it was the smallest she had experienced in her business. Angie and I have found that it usually takes 6 – 12 months of working on so

Creating a YouTube Channel for TpT with Guest Susan Jones Feb 04, 2022

In this episode, Angie and April are speaking with guest Susan Jones about how to leverage YouTube for your TpT business. Join in on the conversation in the mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. We’re excited to dive into talking about YouTube because we’ve been committed to using it but coming up with excuses for years. We’ve always seen YouTuber teachers who were in the classroom during their videos. That was kind of discouraging to us since we’re no longer in the classroom. So, we’re excited to have Susan Jones as a podcast guest to help get us motivated and moving! Susan Jones started her YouTube channel, Susan Jones Teaching, in 2019 when she decided to start working on brand awareness. Social media wasn’t something that she enjoyed doing, and she wasn’t great at putting her face out there even though she had a successful TpT store. Much like us, she had kind of written off YouTube because most of the TpTers on the platform were in the classroom and she wanted to create videos where she could just sit down and talk about a topic. She started with one video a week called “Susan’s Sunday Spotlight”. Most of the videos were less than5 minutes and she shared a game that teachers could use in their classrooms. She is now posting twice a week, and her channel has grown to over 81,000 subscribers. The process of creating YouTube videos Before we jump into all of Susan’s tips, we want to share what her process looks like for video creation along with the time it takes her to complete. Her final edited videos are usually between 10-15 minutes. For each of the videos, she records between 30-45 minutes of herself talking. Since her videos are mainly her sitting and talking, she also records at least an hour or two of B roll footage. Examples of B roll might be a video of her taking a video or a resource being used that she can share on the YouTube video while she talks over it. This helps make her videos more exciting instead of her being a “talking head”. Susan likes to have an outline created for each video before she gets started. On average, she estimates it takes her about and 90 minutes to film a video and around five hours to edit each one. Susan’s YouTube Tips for TpTers Here are the tips Susan shares with TpTers interested in starting or growing a YouTube channel. 1. Batch your work Susan uses her YouTube videos to focus on her main revenue streams. She focuses on one each week during the month and at the start of the month creates the 8-9 videos that will go out that month. She’s found it’s the only way to really get things done consistently when you have so many moving pieces to your business. Trying to find time to film and edit one new video every week would be a lot more time-consuming and stressful than dedicated time to it all at once. 2. Hire someone to help Susan’s sister has worked in her business for years and now dedicates most of her time to editing her YouTube videos. She takes the video and does everything to get it ready to publish. Then, she schedules them ahead of time so she’s able to work at her own pace. They are almost always scheduled beforehand instead of waiting until the day they are supposed to go live. Her sister is the one who adds in the B roll film or extras to make the videos more engaging like a cha

Creating Preview Videos for TpT Resources Jan 21, 2022

In this episode, Angie and April are speaking with guest Chloe Tascoff about how to create and use preview videos for your TpT resources. Join in on the conversation in the mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. We’re excited to have Chloe Tascoff on the podcast to talk about all things video previews. Along with creating her own TpT resources, she specializes in creating preview videos for her clients. She’s going to share some of her tips and tricks about how to make video creation faster and easier along with the best way to use the videos. Chloe got started creating video previews when a friend asked her to try filming a product for her. She played around with it and found she really enjoyed the process. Word started spreading and people started reaching out to her for help on their videos and things grew from there. What is the purpose of a preview video? PDF previews and photographs are helpful at showcasing your resources, but video previews help bring them to life. Chloe shared that consumers are 80% more likely to purchase a product when there is a video attached to it. When teachers are able to see your resources in action it gives them a better idea of what they’re actually receiving. A lot of our video previews end up being flipping through the pages of the resource or sharing pretty much the same information that’s already in the PDF preview. These types of videos can still be helpful, but there are so many additional ways to create a video preview. Chloe recommends if you’re creating a video preview for Pinterest that you keep it to 5-16 seconds long. On social media platforms, your main goal is to stop the scroll so you can get people to click through to your resource. However, for the videos you use on TpT, you have two minutes to use. It’s helpful to create longer videos for this purpose because the people looking at your resource are already there because they are interested in it. That means you can go more in-depth with what you explain and show. What to include in a preview video? Chloe recommends starting your video with overlay text asking a question that appeals to the problem they’re having. She shared the following example: Imagine you’ve created an organizational system to help small groups or centers run smoother. Your audience might be teachers struggling with spending too much time trying to put out fires while doing small group math. You could start with a question like: “Are you struggling with other students interrupting while you’re helping small groups?” Then in your video, you will show how the resource solves that problem for them. Show them the resource in action. This will look differently depending on the type of resource it is. You could flip through blank pages, fill out some of the pages beforehand, or complete the pages on video. If you are creating a video preview for an existing product with reviews make sure to include testimonials for social proof as well. At the end of the video include a call-to-action like “Invest in our bundle today to save your sanity!” What if you have a resource that isn’t exciting? If you have test prep resources or other resources that are heavy question and answer format, Chloe recommends keeping the video preview short. You can show how to fill out the worksheet by only doing one or two pages. She also recommends showing the answer key so teachers know it’s included, but you can keep the video short. What about talking over screen recordings? Screen recordings are a great way to show how your digital resources work, however, Chloe recommends using text overlays i

Reflecting on 2021 and TpT Goal Setting for 2022 Dec 10, 2021

In this episode, Angie and April are reflecting on 2021 and setting goals for 2022. They’re going to dive into the things they want to do more and what surprising thing they’re letting go of in the new year. Join in on the conversation in the mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. This year was a blur! It flew by. We felt like last year was one of the longest years of our lives and we’re thankful that this year was different. However, that also meant things were different in our TpT store and businesses as well. We’re sharing what business looked like in 2021 and what we’re planning for 2022. Reflecting on 2021 in our TpT business I don’t usually set specific monetary goals for my TpT store. I typically see a 20-30% increase in sales from year to year but because of how unique 2020 was, I really just wanted to hit the same earnings from last year. Both April and I created a lot of new resources when everything went digital in March 2020. Teachers needed those resources. That ended up really helping with sales so we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to beat those numbers this year. It made it really difficult to compare product to product from last year to this year, but overall, April had a 35% increase and I had a 50% increase from last year. There are a few things we attribute this to. Hiring help April and I have both hired people that are helping us in our TpT stores. From 2019 to this year, I experienced an 80% increase. I was doing everything on my own in 2019. April had a similar experience. From the same time period, she had a 70% increase in her business. She has added over 200 products to her store since the beginning of the pandemic and was able to do so because she has people working in her business with her. Having help in my business allows me to focus on the things that are in my zone. I’m slow at creating new products. When I was still teaching and running my TpT store, I had to make time to do it but now that I can hire someone else to, it makes the process easier and faster. It allows me to focus on other areas and planning while hiring someone else to help implement my ideas and strategy. This isn’t something we were able to do right away but this also allowed us to gain experience and knowledge on what sells in our stores. If we were just started out from scratch and hired help, we wouldn’t be as successful because we wouldn’t know the strategy or have the templates we’ve created over the years. There’s only so much you’re able to do yourself and having people on your team helps. Including more with products We have learned over the years that sales increase when you include additional pieces with resources. When I first started my store, I would create a resource and that would be all the teachers would get when they bought it. Since then, we’ve learned that it helps to include things like teacher manuals, printables, and suggestions on how they can use the resource in their classroom. This makes life easier for them which increases our sales. If you’re just starting out or not already doing this in your TpT store, this is a great place to start in growing your business. Consistent marketing I largely credit my increase in sales with my effort to market my products consistently. I started having weekly blog posts, regular social media posts and engaging my email list regularly. Years ago I thought I was doing good without blogging so didn’t think it was important, but I started to wonder if I was doing good without blogging, what could I do in sales if I was blogging. If you can identify what products are popular and use that information in your m

Running Promotions for Your TpT Store Nov 26, 2021

In this episode, Angie and April are talking about the secret weapon for sales – promotions. They like to shake things up with their promos so they’re covering a lot of different options in this episode. Join in on the conversation in the mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. It’s always nice to chat with others about what they’re doing in the TpT world, so we have a special guest today, Ciera Harris of Ciera Harris Teaching (formerly known as Adventures of Room 129). She has been on TpT for 10 years and specializes in creating reading comprehension resources for grades 2-4. Together, we’re going to answer some of the commonly asked questions about running promotions. How often should you run sales and promotions? The more you have a promotion, the more people will start to expect it and wait for you to have it. Ciera tries to do one huge promotion each quarter outside of TpT sales. In addition to those, she’ll do little promotions and sales but they aren’t planned out the way the larger ones are that happen each quarter. I don’t run big promotions in my store, but we try to have some kind of promotion going each week. This could be a free resource or a 24-hour quick sale on a resource for a related bundle. We’ve also found that presales work well. We give people a ridiculous sale price if they buy the resource before we create it. We like to do those once a quarter because they are really successful and pay for the creation of the resource. Running promotions and sales on your website store vs TpT Ciera also offers a higher discount on her website store compared to the price on TpT. This gives customers the options to save more (and she earns more because she doesn’t lose the 20% as a premium seller) by purchasing directly through her site. This doesn’t go against TpT restrictions because the resources are priced the same, it’s just the coupon code that’s different. It’s important to know your audience. Some people are only comfortable buying resources on TpT, whereas there are others who don’t care where they buy it from. Encouraging them to buy from your website store has the added benefit of being able to access your money right away in addition to avoiding the commission. Your followers and customers who have already supported your business and buy into your philosophy will likely know that you’re able to do a little better from the sales on your website so they won’t mind buying there. And if you give them a larger discount there as opposed to TpT, it’s even more incentive. People usually like this option and are happy about having it. How do you decide which resources to promote? For Ciera, this is a cross between looking at yearly data and what resources are coming out. At the end of the year she does a big planning session where she tries to plan out all the big promotions. When looking at the upcoming year and the data of the biggest sellers and when they sell along with the new resource completion dates, she can create a mix of old and new resource promotions. It can be easy when you’re focused on new resources to forget about promoting the old resources, but looking at the data is important. Look at what sells well at certain times of the year, what resources are coming out, and how you can best present it to your customers in a way that makes them want to buy it at that time. It all comes down to planning. You can’t throw together a big promotion in two days. If you know months ahead of time, then you can build a stronger promotion for new products. Products you already have are a little easier to plan promotions for. However, from my

Using Canva for Your TpT Store Nov 12, 2021

In this episode, Angie and April are talking about how they use Canva to save time while working with the design aspect of their TpT stores. Join in on the conversation in our mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. In the last podcast episode, we talked all about hiring for your TpT store. It was a pretty serious topic and covered a lot of information. This time, we’re jumping into a fun topic—playing around in Canva! We’re going to share with you the ways that we use Canva for our TpT stores, but we’d love for you to get in the Mastermind group and share how you’re using it. We’re always looking for new ideas. All about Canva If you’ve never heard of Canva, it’s a graphic design platform you can use to create pretty much any type of image you need. In the past, we used Photoshop or PowerPoint to create all our images, but it could be complicated and took a lot of work to make it look just right. Canva makes it simple and easy. I tried Canva when it first came out and didn’t like it. They had some templates but it was very limited and you had to pay to use their images. I quit using it, but they made updates to it over time and people started talking about it a lot. The platform had advanced a lot and when I came back to it, it was so easy to figure out. Is the paid Canva plan worth the investment? This is a question we get asked a lot from TpTers. There is a lot that comes with the free plan. You have access to some of the templates and images on the platform. There are also some options for collaborating with teams. But the paid account is so awesome and we think everyone should be using it. There are a lot of things we pay for and this is one of the things that we use almost every single day. It’s so cheap. The current pricing is around $120/year and that allows you to include five people on your account. April has her whole team in Canva which makes it really easy to work together on projects. What we love about Canva Folders We love the way the Canva paid account allows us to store images and graphics in folders. You can create folders for product launches that include all your templates for social media, slide decks for webinars and mini-trainings. Then, when you launch again next year, you have everything you need in one place. It’s all there and organized. Templates Templates help make the entire graphic design fast and easy. I love that you can make a template, put a placeholder in it and then easily drop an image in it when you’re ready. It saves a lot of time not having to recreate the template over and over again. All you need to do is switch the images. I can switch whole product lines in less than an hour with templates for social images, previews, thumbnails, pins, and the teacher manuals in my resources. You can create your own templates to save and share with the paid plan, but there are also tons of pre-designed templates you can use. Canva also has templates that make it easy to create mockups of your resources. They have templates with tablets and computer screens you can drop your resource photos into. You can even search “mockups” in the templates to see the templates they already have created. You can also search templates by your brand color codes. This makes it really easy to find pre-created templates that are already using your colors. You’ll probably still need to do some tweaking, but it can speed the process up. To search by color, you just use hit the filter image by the search box. Branding With the paid Canva account, you can store all of your brand

FAQs About Hiring for Your TpT Store Oct 29, 2021

In this episode, Angie and April are answering frequently asked questions about hiring for your TpT store. They cover everything from VAs to full-time employees. You can join in on the conversation in our mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. A couple of years ago we did an episode on how to hire help to grow your TpT store, but a lot has changed in our businesses over time. So, we’re excited to have Caitlin Mitchell from EB Academics join us on the podcast to talk about all things hiring. Disclaimer: We are not accountants. We are sharing our personal experiences. We encourage you to talk to your accountant or a tax professional before hiring employees or contractors for your TpT business. The rules and restrictions vary from state to state. Please make sure you cover your bases. With that disclaimer out of the way, we get a lot of questions in our group about hiring help. Caitlin, Angie, and I all have employees working in our businesses but it looks a little different for each of us. Caitlin has two full-time employees, 8 part-time employees, as well as an overseas virtual assistant and editor through Upwork. Angie currently has eight people working with her. She hires as she sees a need in her business or something she doesn’t want to do on her own anymore. I currently have 3 full-time employees along with part-time employees. Q: Should I hire employees or freelance contractors We’re not going to get into the legal/tax side of the difference between contractors vs employees. However, we do want to touch on the experience of working with contractors vs employees. All three of us have worked with both options. Contractors can be nice to work with when you have a project that you need to be completed. This is often an easier way to begin having people help you complete different tasks within your company. The difference that we notice with employees is you’re able to grow and direct them for your company where you’re not really able to do the same with contractors. When you hire someone as an employee, we’ve found that you get more buy-in from them. They are part of your team and share your mission and goals with you. When you work with a contractor, you may be one of many of their clients. This may be OK with you for certain tasks, but as we’ve handed over more and more tasks, we’ve all enjoyed the experience of hiring employees. Yes, it is expensive, but we’ve found once you get to the point of needing to hire, the resources are there. Q: Where to find people to hire? There are several different places that we’ve found work for hiring employees for our TpT businesses. Here are a few to consider: Upwork: If this works with your tax situation and rules, it can be easier because the platform issues the 1099s for you. Network of teachers: This is a great way to find help in the summer. You may also find teachers who are looking to earn some extra money for vacations, paying off student loans, or putting their kids in extra curriculars. People you know: Angie’s sister-in-law works for her and I have a close friend working for me. This won’t always be a great fit, but if you have people you trust that fit with your business it’s a possibility. Recommendations: You may be able to get a good recommendation from another TpTer. However, keep in mind that just because someone works well with an individual doesn’t mean it will automatically be a great fit for you. Email list or followers: Don

We're Back! Oct 15, 2021

No show notes for this episode, but we’re excited to be back with a full episode in two weeks!

How to Make Digital Learning Interactive May 06, 2020

Digital learning is on everyone's minds these days. So, today we’re talking about what you can do to make digital learning interactive and tips for converting your existing resources. And, we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what works for you and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com. Now that teachers everywhere are dabbling in digital learning, it doesn't look like this is something that's just going to go away once everyone is back in the classroom. So, digital products will be something we can continue to focus on more than just converting our existing print resources. It's something April and I have been wanting to talk about, but it just wasn't that popular. Obviously, things have changed. So, we are excited to have Erin Flanagan from Erintegration as our guest on the Grow With Us Podcast. Erin is an expert in interactive digital training. Most of her store has a technology focus and she's familiar with making resources that can be used on various platforms. It's the identity of her brand and blog. So, we hit her up with our interactive digital learning questions. What resources are selling well right now? Erin has found that fully contained resources seem to be selling the best right now. These are the resources that include all directions, don't need any other resources, and the students can complete the entire thing within the platform they're using. Right now, most teachers are focused on trying to do short lessons with the students and then assign them work they can do independently. So, any products geared towards that are most likely going to be more popular. For example, Erin has a multiplication fact practice activity that is self-checking, and students can do completely on Google Sheets. The teacher doesn't even need to be involved in giving directions. Things like this are getting a lot more attention right now. Teachers are looking for simple resources that don't need a lot of guidance. What can we expect next year from digital resources if the classrooms are open? I think the fact that most of Erin's store is geared entirely toward digital learning, it shows her answer to this question. Even before the pandemic hit, there has been a shift in general to teachers using more digital tools. Now, schools are realizing that it's important for them to have a game plan for distance learning in place whether it's for a pandemic or a snow day. Schools don't want to be left in the position of scrambling to figure it out after the fact in the future. Erin believes that as teachers transition back to the classroom they're going to want to keep some of the things that are great about digital learning. There are some things you can do on a device that you just can't do without it. She thinks teachers are finding those positives and will be considering them as they buy resources for the fall. I agree with her. Teachers that were afraid to try digital products in the past are building up confidence in using them right now. They may feel better using some of the more complex digital resources when they're back in the classroom. Right now parents are the ones having to troubleshoot the login process and getting their kids set up. When everyone's back in the classroom, teachers may be thankful to be able to handle these tech issues. What's the difference between clip art and moveable clip art? Erin shared that sometimes teachers are confused that both clip art and moveable pieces are both PNG image files. To Erin, the biggest difference is that moveable pieces are designed to only be used on a screen. They aren't m

3 Things to do to Move Your TpT Store Forward Apr 22, 2020

We'll be completely honest with you. We spent the first few weeks of this pandemic in a bit of panic mode which has the tendency to paralyze people from taking action. But we're coming out of that now and we want to share what we're doing to have some movement in our TpT business during this time. Don't worry, we're not going to tell you to shift everything to digital products. And, we're not going to just focus on the coronavirus. The 3 things that we're going to share are things that can benefit your business right now in the midst of the pandemic but also at any other time. 1. Survey your audience This is a tool that we've talked about before. This is a great time to be surveying your audience. A month ago, teachers felt like they needed everything. There was no plan at that time. Everyone was in panic mode. Now, they have a better understanding of what's expected of them and what they need. So, it's a great time to survey your audience. Here are some questions you could ask your audience: How are you teaching right now? Are you using Google Classroom? Are you sending home packets? What resources are you using? What digital options are you interested in? Is there training you would like to have? What can I do to support you? Think about what's been on the back burner One of the first things that Angie did when this happened is thought about what resources teachers have asked for in the past that she hadn't worked on yet. While something might not have been the right thing for you to create for your store in the past, it might be a better time now. If there is something your audience has asked for in the past, rethink if this is the right time to focus on it now. Engage with your email list Angie and I have both become more consistent with our email lists. I've been sending emails a few times a week. Teachers are overwhelmed right now and I don't think they're reading every email. But I'm being more active with my list and I'm getting more feedback. In my emails I'm asking what teachers need, offering support, or making them aware of a resource that I have on sale. Teachers are responding with valuable feedback to let me know what they need. Why this is so important A lot of times, TpTers look to other TpTers to see what people want. But that's not necessarily what your audience wants. You need to find out what your specific audience is looking for. For example, a lot of TpTers quickly started turning all their resources into digital resources, but that's not what all audiences want. You could be wasting your time doing this if your audience doesn't care about digital resources. Think about the long-term As you get feedback from your audience, think about how it fits into your long-term plans. You don't want to just focus on a short-term bandaid right now. You want your efforts to be something that can be good for your business for the long-haul. As we move forward, more teachers will be more fluent with digital resources. But that doesn't mean they'll want to use them once they can get back in the classroom. That's why you need to carefully weigh what is beneficial for right now that will also be beneficial in the future. Consider offering training sessions I've been getting a lot of feedback by offering training sessions for teachers. I was getting a lot of questions about how to assign one of my writing assignments online. So, I ran a Facebook ad and held a one-hour training. I got so many questions during that training that I've been able to use to create quick videos for teachers. I know a lot of people hate doing video, but it's a great way to connect with yo

Growing Your Pinterest Following and Views with The Stellar Teacher Co. Dec 17, 2019

We've been hearing from a lot of Tpters lately reporting that their traffic and views are dropping in Pinterest. So, today we’re talking about what you can do to combat that and increase your Pinterest activity. And, we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what works for you and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com. On this episode of the Grow With Us Podcast, we have Sara from the Stellar Teacher Company joining our conversation on Pinterest. When we saw the concerns around the current struggle with Pinterest, we put out a call in our group for new Pinterest strategies and someone recommended Sara. Her account has 4.4 million monthly viewers. Sara creates and sells resources for upper elementary and launched her website earlier this year. We had a long list of questions and discussed the following Pinterest strategies: The use of video pins Sara shared with us that she noticed a big increase in her Pinterest views when she started using video pins. She only uses them to share and link to her products and isn't using them to share blog posts or opt-in offers for her email lists. A recent video pin had 149k views with 2.4k saves on these pins. It's her highest percentage of engagement on Pinterest which really surprised her because they are pretty simple and straightforward. However, the videos are able to provide a more comprehensive view of what's included in the resource which is what teachers are looking for. It allows them to get a good feel for the entire product. How to create video pins for Pinterest Sara reassured all of us that it really isn't that difficult to create video pins. She likes to batch her work so she can create multiple pins at once. She uses her iPhone for all of the videos and photos that she takes for her marketing and really likes the time-lapse feature to help speed things up. This allows her to flip through an entire 50-page resource in a 7-second video. Apps for video editing When it comes to editing her videos, Sara likes to use PicPlayPost. She uses the paid version because it's not that expensive but there is a free version as well. This app allows you to edit things like brightness and timing, which is helpful because your video needs to be at least six seconds long. The app also allows you to add text and combine multiple videos into one. Sara shared that it's easy to use and within an hour of playing around you can be pretty set on how to use it. Importance of consistency While video pins have contributed to Sara's recent growth you can't overlook the importance of consistency. She experienced what she calls the "Pinterest Crisis" last fall just like many others. In order to combat the dip she experienced, she began to post consistently. While Tailwind was helpful, Sara didn't enjoy using it so she eventually hired a VA to handle it for her and it's made a huge difference. It helps here to keep the queue full of new pins or high performing ones that she wants to keep circulating. This is the first year that she's been consistently pinning the same number of pins every day. She keeps it to 25-30 pins a day and personally doesn't use SmartLoop because her VA is helping do the work for her. The consistency has had a good impact on her growth since last fall. When it comes to creating new resources, she tries to upload 20-30 new pins a month for it. And, while she does do repins of both video and regular pins, she makes a point to get the new pins out there too. Batching work to save time As mentioned before, Sara prefers to batch her work. For example, a few weekends before we recorded our episode with her, she created all of her video pins for the month. This is how it worked: Two hours spent on printing, cutting, and preparing Two hours spent on making

Setting Up Your Website Store with Guest Melissa Tallman Dec 03, 2019

Last month we stepped out of our comfort zone to talk about selling on our websites. Today we invited someone who knows way more about the topic than we do to share more information. And, we're continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what works for you and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com. A few podcast episodes ago, Angie and I shared our own experiences with selling directly from our websites. And, now we are really excited to bring Melissa Tallman from Teacher Thrive onto the podcast. She has been running her own store for about eight months and can speak to some of the things that we can't, like WooCommerce. What made Melissa decide to sell on her website Like Angie and I, Melissa is grateful for TpT. It's a great way for teacher sellers to really get started. But, Melissa is no longer teaching in the classroom and has turned her business into her full-time income. Because of that, she doesn't want to keep all of her eggs in one basket. Just in case anything were ever to happen with TpT, she can't afford to lose all her income. So, she decided to set up her website store and use her own platform. Deciding on WooCommerce and setting up her store Melissa gave the DIY path a try when she first started to set up her store but realized it wasn't for her. So, she hired a developer. She knew from the start that she wanted to use WooCommerce because she prefers how it's customizable and knew that it offered the look that she wanted. Some things, like writing a blog post or resource descriptions were really simple. But, when she started to try to customize the storefront to be easy for the customer to use, it wasn't as simple. Melissa didn't want to spend her own time trying to figure out how to set it up from scratch, so she hired a developer. It can be easy to spend a lot of time trying to make all those little tweaks to get things looking just right and still not end up with what you're looking for. That's why sometimes it's just easier and faster to hire someone that knows what they're doing. Melissa's advice for teacher sellers When we asked Melissa what advice she had for teacher sellers when setting up a store, it all came back to hiring help. It's not that she's against people setting it up on their own. But, she highly recommends finding someone that knows what they are doing. She found a person on Upwork. Her recommendation is that you find examples of stores that you like the look and functionality, find a developer that you'd like to work with, and ask them for a quote on how much it would cost. There are a lot of talented freelancers on Upwork. Another area that you might want to consider hiring help in is moving your products over from TpT to your own store. You can go the simple route and just copy them over, but eventually, you'll want to update all the links so you are keeping your bundles together on your own website store. Either route is time-consuming, but copying them over is a lot less intensive. You can hire a virtual assistant to help you out if needed. Melissa bit the bullet and did the work all at once from the start with the help of her husband. WooComerce plugins Melissa uses a bundle plugin called YITH that works with WooComerce. While she suggested that there might be newer ones, she liked the look of it and that it was similar to setting up bundles on TpT. It also provides pagination where teachers can see all the items within the bundle. It allows them to click on it to see the exact product page that's included. Another plugin that she recommends is called Discount Rules by Flycart Technologies. This allows you to offer a "build your own bundle" option on your website. Melissa used the example of the grammar units that she sells. She of

How to Stay Productive When You're Overwhelmed with Guest Shelly Rees Nov 19, 2019

As a teacherpreneuer there are so many things to focus on while growing your TpT business. It's easy to become overwhelmed and lose focus. Today we're talking about how to stay productive, and we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what works for you and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com. April and I were excited to bring Shelly Rees back as a guest on the Grow With Us Podcast. She was a guest way back in episode 10 when we were live at the 2018 TpT conference. She's a teacher seller and a productivity guru. On this episode, she shared some incredibly valuable tips on how to stay productive and beat that feeling of overwhelm that we all experience at times. If you have been trying to figure out how to stay focused, this is the episode for you! There's always going to be a little overwhelm I describe my overwhelm as a sliding scale. Sometimes it's more and other times it's not as bad, but there's always a bit of it there. Remember, you may always feel a little bit of that overwhelm. It's not that you need to eliminate it all the way, but you do need to learn how to manage it and stay focused. What you don't want is to get so overwhelmed that it causes you to freeze and not do anything. Shelly is experienced at this. She has two facets to her business. The first is her TpT store. The second side is helping other teacher authors. She admits that it can be overwhelming, but she has found the right strategies to help her stay productive through it. Here is what she recommends you do to stay focused: 1. Do a brain dump Shelly suggests that you get a big piece of paper and just start writing everything down that's rolling around in your head. This includes the big and little things. Write down all the projects you're working on and tasks that you need to do. It doesn't have to be business related. It could be something like "clean the kitchen counter". Just get it all out. 2. Prioritize it Once you have it all out of your head and down on paper, it's time to prioritize it. List them as most important to least important. Or, if you're really feeling overwhelmed, Shelly recommends that you list them from the smallest task to the biggest task. This allows you to get some easy wins by completing and crossing off the small tasks first. This helps to build momentum and allows you to be more productive. 3. Keep a list of tiny tasks These are tasks that will only take you 15 minutes or less to complete. It could be something like creating a new pin. Shelly keeps this list on hand at all times. Then, when she finds that she has a small chunk of time to use, she can do something productive instead of scroll through Instagram or Facebook. We're all guilty of wasting those little chunks of time. One of the biggest excuses that Shelly hears from TpTers that are still working in the classroom is that they don't have enough time. But if you work on focusing during those small chunks of time then you'll see that you actually have more time than you realized. Or, if you need a little motivation to help see this, look at the breakdown on your phone of your screen time. You'll most likely see that you are wasting more time than you realize on things like social media. How to stay productive by organizing your time While the three steps above can go a long way in helping you stay productive, it's also helpful to keep the big picture in mind when organizing your time. Here's how Shelly does it: Choose a word of the year. For 2019, her word was "intentional". She wanted to be intentional about creating products and how she was using her time. She will choose a new word for 2020. Plan 3 big goals. Once she has he

Selling on Your Website: What you need to know when creating a website store Oct 29, 2019

While we aren't experts on the topic, today we’re sharing our experiences with setting up a website store to sell products from our own websites. And, we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share any tips or ask any of your hiring questions: www.growwithusmastermind.com. Some links are affiliate links. We pay for the podcast costs using revenue generated when people checkout using our links. This is a bit of a taboo topic that we are going to jump into today—selling on your website. Angie and I are in no way claiming to be experts on this topic, but we've received a lot of questions about it lately. Our stores are pretty new and we are still in the beginning phases, but we wanted to share our experiences, what we've experimented with and do our best to answer your questions. Please know that we are in no way encouraging everyone to start a store or to take resources off of TpT. It's a great platform that drives a lot of traffic to our resources and has been a huge blessing for us both. We are simply exploring options to grow our business which has led us to open website stores in addition to our TpT stores. This is not something for everyone. We are going to answer your questions as honestly as we can to give you a good indication of if this is a good option for you or not. So, here we go: When or why should you start a website store? As mentioned above, it's not for everyone. If you're already overwhelmed with creating resources, building an email list, and growing your social media following, it might not be the right time for you. It's not as simple as just throwing up your resources on one more site and calling it a day. We don't recommend for beginners This is not something for beginners. If you only have a few resources up at TpT, focus on growing your store there first. They drive traffic to the website and teachers naturally come to it to look for resources. This is the best place to start growing your sales. If you're just starting out, stick with product creation for now. When you have your own store, you're the only person driving traffic to it. It's not going to just start flowing in without you working on it. We don't recommend if you aren't looking for additional features If you don't want to use more features than what TpT already has—if you don't want to pixel customers to retarget them with ads, give coupons to your email list, and things like that—just stick with TpT. Having your own store allows you to have a lot more analytics about your customers which allows you to target them further. If that's not important to you right now, it's probably not worth your time to start a store on your website. We don't recommend if you don't have the money and time It cost money to set up your shop, get traffic to your store, etc. I know a lot of sellers were interested in starting their own stores when TpT increased their commission from 15% to 20%. However, when they made that jump they realized they weren't selling as much on their own stores. TpT gets a lot of organic traffic that you just aren't going to get on your own store. You have to create all of that momentum yourself. You are going back to square one when you start your own store. If you're on the fence and can't think of any other reason to start a store than wanting to make more commission, it might not be for you. What sales platforms should you use? As we mentioned, Angie and I aren't experts on website stores, so we are only able to share our own experiences here. Woocomerce Woocomerce is a really popular Wordpress plugin. A lot of people use it. However, I can easily get carried away with tweaking things in Wordpress which

Hiring Help to Grow Your TpT Store Sep 24, 2019

Whether you're back-to-school and short on time or simply have too much on your plate as a full-time TpTer, hiring help can be exactly what you need to grow your store. Today we’re talking everything you need to know as you get ready to make your first hire. And, we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share any tips or ask any of your hiring questions: www.growwithusmastermind.com. This is a topic that people are excited about! There have been tons of questions and inside the group regarding how to hire help. So, we are going to do our best to answer them all. Let's dive in. What you need to know before you make your first hire Here's a word of warning—it's hard to hire people. You have spent time and energy building your TpT business and it's hard to hand over tasks to others. Essentially, you have to trust them to be able to continue the work you have started. It can be tough. Not every person you hire is going to be the right fit. But before you even start looking for your first hire, you have to do a little more work yourself. You need to figure out what you want to hire for. Think about what tasks you are doing that you don't want to do. It might be that you struggle with getting them done or that you just don't like them. Then, you need to get crystal clear on what tasks you're going to hire someone to do and what your expectations are. It's your job to choose the right person and give them proper training. If you try to rush the process, you'll most likely end up disappointed. I'll share with you my exact hiring process to show you exactly what I mean shortly. But, just remember that before you jump into the process you have to have a purpose for your hire. What are they going to help you accomplish? If you don't know, they aren't going to know either. What is a VA? This is a popular question in the group because it's the common advice that you're probably hearing all over the place. If you are overwhelmed in your business, people will tell you to "hire a VA". VA stands for Virtual Assistant. These are people that can essentially help you do a lot of those smaller and more time-consuming tasks. A good VA is someone that you can work with to teach them how to do a task and then turn it over to them and they take it from there. This is a person that doesn't necessarily need a lot of specialized skills in one certain area. For example, a VA may help you reply to a few emails, create some Pins, and respond to a question for you on Facebook Messenger. Angie recently hired someone to work as a VA. She is in her local area but is going to work remotely. They met and Angie showed her several tasks that she was looking for someone to complete. They include things like creating pins and copying and pasting resource descriptions from her TpT store to her website. They are not necessarily difficult tasks, but they are time-consuming. Angie can do them, but she'd rather not have to. What a VA is not A VA is not a mini-me. This can be a sticking point for a lot of TpTers and it was for us at first too. When I first started trying to find someone, I didn't really know what I wanted help with. I just wanted someone that could step in and handle what I do on a daily basis while still being affordable. That was unrealistic. However, there are definitely people out there that can take some things off your plate. You just have to know what to look for. What can I hire help for? Instead of hiring a VA, you can also hire for specific tasks. Look for the tasks that you don't enjoy doing, or that you aren't great at, and hire someone to handle that exact thing. Customer service For example, I recently decided to hire for customer service. It wasn't something that I needed when I first started out and was only getting an email a day. But now I get

Leveraging Promotions: How to Get the Most out of Group and Individual Promotions Sep 10, 2019

The back-to-school rush has come and gone! Now it's time to figure out how to promote our resources for the rest of the year. Today we're talking about leveraging promotions. And, we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what works for you and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com. Happy back to school! It's that busy time of year where everyone's adjusting to new schedules. But, the back-to-school sales rush is over which leaves us TpTers asking "What now?" The back-to-school time is great for sales as teachers prepare for their classes, but it's also a time when it's easy to get lost in the crowd. There are tons of sales, giveaways, and promotions going on. This is one of the reasons why it's great to continue doing promotions throughout the year. Angie and I are working on creating our promotion schedule for the year. Teachers are really appreciative of fun giveaways and promotions throughout the year, so don't think you have to wait until the next big holiday or TpT sale to promote your products. We're going to give you insights on both group promotions and individual promotions and share what's worked well for us. Group promotions To be honest, I have a love-hate relationship with group promotions. I love how great they are at getting me in front of new people. And, it's a really affordable way to do that because you can pitch in some money instead of having to do all the advertising on your own. But, they can be a lot of work, especially if the organizer isn't really organized. Over the past five years, I've really learned a lot from the different group promotions that I've been a part of. I've also learned that I like to be the one organizing them because I'm a bit of a control freak. The simpler they are, the easier they are to be a part of. But, in all honesty, they can be fun to participate in and when run well, they can give you great results. Tip: Find sellers with similar grade levels as you Angie and I have both found that it's really helpful to work with other sellers that focus on the same grade levels as you. This gives you similar audiences which is exactly what you want when doing a group promotion. The more targeted you are, the more likely you are to get in front of an audience that will join your lists and buy your products and resources. I know some TpT sellers also like to pay attention to what specialties the other sellers in a group has as well. If you all focus on a different area there is less competition among the group. You don't really want competing resources within a promotion. Tip: Look at past performance Before joining a group, you want to make sure that the other sellers in the group participate and follow through on the things they're supposed to do for the promotion. You don't want to join with other sellers that aren't going to share the posts with their group. And, you'd be surprised how many people this really is. Check to see how they performed in other group promotions they were a part of. Did they post the images to their platforms? Did they comment on the others? There are some people that participate 110% and then there are others that have great followings but don't really participate. Tip: Don't do ALL promotions with the same group If you only work with the same group over and over again you're going to limit your reach. You'll only be getting in front of the same people over and over again. The last promotion that Angie and I did, we worked with some new people from the group and it turned out great. If you do a few a year with the same group and spread it out over the course of the year then you'll most likely be fine. Both you and the other sellers will have grown your audience in between the promotions, so there will still be new eyes seeing your stuff.

Building an Email List with Nicki from The Sprinkle Topped Teacher Aug 20, 2019

You've heard about the importance of building an email list, but what are you supposed to do with it once you have it? We're discussing how to consistently use your list and the importance of growing it today on the podcast. And, we're continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what works for you and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com. Building an email list. It seems to be one of those things that's on every TpTers to-do list, but it's often not something that we focus on. April and I both admit that we haven't been real consistent with sending out emails to our lists over the summer either. That's why we brought Nicki from The Sprinkle Topped Teacher on the podcast to share how she grew her TpT store by focusing on building and using an email list. A little about Nicki Nicki started her store, The Sprinkle Topped Teacher, back in September of 2015. Her original focus was on K-3 products, but she has moved into creating resources for a broader audience. This is her first schoolyear that she is going full time as a TpTer. She recently moved across the country and is using this as her opportunity to try stepping away from the classroom. If you're thinking about taking the same step, check out our episode So You're Thinking of Going Full Time TpT? It's an exciting step but can feel a little scary too. Nicki started focusing on building an email list after listening to plenty of business podcasts that talked about the importance of it. And, it really stood out to her when she heard Jenna Kutcher from Goal Digger say that if people subscribe to your email list they are your people. She spent the entire 2018 year creating products releasing three a month! After that, she felt it was time to start building her list. So, she signed up for Amy Porterfield's Email List Building course and hit the ground running. During the 2019 schoolyear, she only created one resource and spent the rest of her time focusing on growing her email list and the results have been huge! Don't be afraid to invest in yourself Nicki mentioned that because she invested in herself and spent the money on the course she was more likely to follow through on completing it. The investment became a type of accountability for her. April and I have found the same thing to be true. So, don't be afraid to invest in yourself. with courses and software. It might be just the thing that you need as motivation to really get your TpT business growing. What do you send out to your email list? Nicki believes in the 90/10 strategy. This means that 90% of what she sends out is focused on serving her customer. The last 10% is leftover for sales. Every Sunday she sends out the Sunday Sunshine to her email list. The goal is to help her audience fight the Sunday scary. She reminds them of their purpose and value and gives them a freebie or notifies them of a promotion or podcast that shew was on. On occasion, (that 10%) she sends out a sales email. When she does this it's usually an email the day before the sale and then one on the day of the sale. Here's the best part—people reply to her emails. They are thankful for them and she gets feedback and reassurance that her emails are a hit with her audience. What type of format should you use? Nicki sticks with a simple format for her weekly emails. They begin with an introduction and then include a tip or challenge for the week. After that, she has a closing message and a P.S. that includes something that she's promoting. You may hear from other sources that you should keep your emails short. But, Nicki mentioned that her emails are long

Is Creating a Course Right for My Business? (Announcement) Aug 12, 2019

Join 30 Days to Impactful PD Sign up for the Tuesday webinar: Is Creating a Course Right for My Business?

Blogging Challenge Week 4: Market the Post Aug 06, 2019

This is the final week of our four-week blogging challenge and we are focusing on marketing blog posts. We took the information we covered in our workshop at the TpT Conference and turned it into a challenge. The goal is to help you set up a blogging plan that you can stick to. No big deal if you missed the conference workshop! This challenge will work for any TpTer. Join our mastermind group for blogging accountability as we work through the challenge: www.growwithusmastermind.com. In Week 4 we are going to focus on putting together everything we learned in the first week and start marketing our blog posts. In order to complete the tasks this week, you're going to need to work through the first 3 weeks. So, if you're just joining us, go back and check out what you missed: Plan Your Year: Week 1 - Learn how to set up a blogging plan for the year that's easy to follow. Blog Optimization & Prep: Week 2 - Focus on optimizing your website so you'll be ready when you start getting blog readers. Craft an Intentional Post: Week 3 - Learn why you need to be intentional with the posts that you write and what steps to follow. Let's talk about marketing blog posts So, you have a beautifully crafted and intentional blog post completed and published. Now what? Do you just wait for the readers to come? No way! Now is the time to focus on marketing. You want to make it easy for your audience to find your blog post. Resources to help with marketing blog posts The first thing I want you to do, if you haven't already, is go download the Challenge Organizer on our Resources page here. In this guide is a checklist that you can use when marketing your blog post. This is something that you can refer back to with every blog post that you write. Creating images for marketing Here's the thing you need to keep in mind when creating images for your blog posts and marketing—keep it easy. There are a few tips that can help you do this. Canva There are many different ways you can create images for your blog and marketing. Angie and I both use Canva so that's what we will be discussing here. There is a free version that is still incredibly useful, but we both use the paid version. It allows you to have access to a huge image library and has another incredible tool that I'll share in a minute. Use templates Angie and I both use templates for creating our social media and blog post images. You don't need to reinvent the wheel every time you need a new image. Simply create a design that you like. It should have your branding on it. Then, with every new blog post, all you need to do is create a copy, update the title, and swap out images. The layout is already there and waiting for you, so you can save a lot of time. If you struggle with design, you can buy templates to use the same way. Create multiple images at once Angie is great at this. When she writes a blog post she has five different templates that she uses. This makes it easy for her to create images for Pinterest, Instagram, and anywhere else that she wants to share an image. If you are doing a shoot with a new resource that you have, take TONS of pictures. Make sure to get them from different angles and sizes so you have options to work with later. Having many photos to choose from and different image templates will allow you to market and share your blog post over and over without having to use the same image. This allows it not to appear so repetitive. In the paid version of Canva, you can

Blogging Challenge Week 3: Craft an Intentional Post Jul 30, 2019

This is the 3rd week of our four-week blogging challenge. We are continuing to build off of our Intentional Blogging workshop from the TpT Conference. This challenge was designed to help you learn to write an intentional post and optimize your blog. It's OK if you missed the conference workshop, this challenge will work for any TpTer. Join our mastermind group for blogging accountability as we work through the challenge: www.growwithusmastermind.com. Week 3 of the challenge is here and we're going to dive into writing an intentional blog post. If you're just joining us for the challenge I encourage you to go back and work through the first two weeks: Week 1: Plan Your Year - We walked you through how to plan out and choose topics to write about for the entire year (which isn't as many as it sounds like). Week 2: Blog Optimization & Prep - We discussed areas of your blog that you should optimize before you turn your focus on directing traffic to your site. Crafting an intentional post This week we are all going to work through brainstorming and writing one blog post. Here's what we're going to focus on when writing: Make it SEO friendly Clearly state what the post is about in the title Keep goals front and center The entire purpose of writing intentional posts is to meet the goals of your TpT business. In order to do that, you need to ask yourself a few questions before you start writing: What are the goals for your post? How will it benefit your business? What are you hoping to achieve by writing the post? What do you want readers to do? How to write an intentional post In Grow With Us episode 33, we talked all about intentional blogging. So, instead of restating the same information again, I'll highlight a few things we discussed. Then, if you missed the episode the first time, head over to listen to it or read the show notes. What blogging intentionally is How to create a 3 part blog post The importance of answering questions from your audience Focusing on quality and not quantity Plugins that can help you Blog organizer and checklist If you haven't downloaded our free resource from the TpT conference yet, you can get that on the Resources page here. The Challenge Organizer document has a place to help you brainstorm your blog post ideas. There's a spot for you to write the post title, post goals, and the main ideas you want to discuss. Keeping the goals front and center is important because you need to know what action you want readers to take when they finish reading. Your post should be based around leading them in that direction. The organizer and checklist are designed to make it easier for you when you get to the point of sitting down to write the blog post. This week our focus is on brainstorming the post, writing it, creating the images, adding the email opt-in, editing it for SEO, and adding in links. Importance of including links You want to include links throughout your post for two reasons: It's good for SEO It allows you to provide more valuable information for your readers After you write your blog post go back and look for areas that you can place links. You can link to other blog posts that you have on the topic, your email opt-in, or your TpT store. Remember to keep your blog goals in mind so you know what links to include. Your links don't always need to be i

Blogging Challenge Week 2: Blog Optimization & Prep Jul 23, 2019

This is the 2nd week of our four-week blogging challenge. This is building off of our Intentional Blogging workshop from the TpT Conference. Over the next several weeks, we will focus on helping you with blog optimization and writing intentional blog posts. It's OK if you missed the conference workshop, this challenge will work for any TpTer. If you are just joining us, make sure to check out Week 1 here and join our mastermind group for blogging accountability as we work through the challenge: www.growwithusmastermind.com. Week two of the blogging challenge is all about prepping and optimizing your blog for success. Having quality blogs is important, but you want to make sure your site is set up and ready for when people show up. You want your audience to easily find out about you, see your posts, and find your resources. Let's get started... Blog Optimization with SEO Yes, you want to include your SEO keywords within your blog posts, but blog optimization requires to go even further. You need to think about things like your link structure. This should be SEO friendly as well. What you're looking for is a link that looks like this: YourBlogName.com/keyword-phrase Keep your links short, simple, and use your SEO keywords. I just recently got all of my links redirected and switched over. All of my old structured links now redirect to new SEO friendly links. I actually paid someone to help me with this (learn more about outsourcing in episode 14). If you can redirect your existing blog posts, that's great. But, if that's not something you have time to worry about right now just use this strategy moving forward. Blog SEO resources We are going to dive further into SEO keywords next week, but SEO is an important part of prepping and blog optimization. So, here are a few resources: Past Grow With Us Podcast Episodes Episode 19: Tips & Tools for Optimizing Your Blog Traffic Episode 17: SEO Tips with Guest Noelle Pickering SEO keyword finder tool Uber Suggest is a great, and FREE, resource! You can enter in a topic that you're interested in and it provides you with a list of ranked keywords. Challenge resources Angie and I compiled a list of SEO resources and included them in our Blogging Challenge resource list. You can find them on the main resource page for the challenge here or at the link below. There is one list with SEO for Blogger and one that's SEO for Wordpress. www.growwithuspodcast.com/challenge/ Prepping your homepage You want your homepage to me more than just a list of your existing blog posts. When your audience arrives at your homepage, they should be able to find out who you are, what you do, and what you stand for. There should also be a call-to-action (CTA). You want people to easily be able to sign up for your email list, training course, or anything else that you have as an option for people to opt in for. You need to include a way for people to interact with and engage with you. If you're just starting out with your blog and haven't created an opt-in yet then encourage them to follow you on social media. The main goal is to make sure that you have a way to continue interacting with them once they click off your blog. You don't want to lose them forever. Optimizing your contact page Your "Contact" page is a way for people to easily reach ou

Blogging Challenge Week 1: Plan Your Year Jul 16, 2019

We are super excited to be continuing our TpT Conference workshop on "intentional blogging" in this new blogging challenge. Over the next four weeks, we will focus on helping you with blog planning to be more intentional with your posts. It doesn't matter if you attended the conference or not, we want you to participate! Make sure you head over to our mastermind group for accountability as we work through the challenge together: www.growwithusmastermind.com. Are you feeling motivated and inspired after attending the TpT conference? We hope so! We were honored to present a workshop this year on intentional blogging. The conference is always a great time for gaining new insight and focus to grow your TpT store. But, if you didn't attend the conference, don't worry—we've got you covered! Over the next four weeks, we are embarking on a blogging challenge. If you attended the workshop, you know all about it. If not, that's OK. We are going to provide short podcasts once a week over the next month to walk you through the process of learning to blog intentionally for your TpT business. What this challenge is and what it's not This challenge is not blogging every day for 30 days. We'd never ask you to commit to that. We wouldn't do it ourselves! It's not even about blogging once a week. Last summer we ran a blogging challenge to blog once a week for six weeks. It was rough! So, this year, we are going to focus more on prepping your blog for the entire year. Yes, it's an entire year of blog planning, but it's going to be simplified and goal oriented. We want to help you succeed! This challenge is all about quality over quantity. It's better for you to blog less and create content that you're proud of then to pump out new content that's subpar each week. We don't want you to feel stressed about blogging. Week 1 focus: plan your year Let's be real, half the hassle of blogging is sitting down and trying to figure out what to post about. That's why intentional blogging is so helpful. We talked about it a lot in our conference workshop, but you can also learn more about it in our podcast episode 33. You need to know why you're blogging. What are your goals? Of course, you want to sell everything in your store. But, it's hard to blog about all the resources you have. So, it helps to look at the following things when choosing your focus and finding your sweet spot. Which products in your store are selling really well Areas where a lot of others aren't already selling resources and you are What other teachers consider you an expert on Here's what this looks like on my blog. I have decided to focus on two areas. My first focus is creating blog posts on the products that are selling well that I don't have a lot of blog posts for just yet. I'm going to focus on explaining why teachers should be trying the activities in their classrooms and how to succeed with them. My second area of focus is on creating blog posts around the questions that I'm hearing teachers ask a lot in Facebook groups. Creating an intentional blogging plan Most successful blogs have one particular theme for their blog. It could be a grade level or a certain type of learning style. Something along those lines. Before you start mapping out a year of random blog posts, it's important to choose what you're going to focus on. Decide what area you want people to see you as an expert on. Do not move on from week one until you know what those topics are for you. And, when it comes to planning a schedule, do what works for you. April and I recommend that you shoot for at least one blog post a month, or two if you can do it. Choose what will work the best for your schedule while allowing you to create qua

The Importance of Intentional Blogging Jul 02, 2019

We get a lot of blogging questions from TpT sellers. And, since blogging is a great way to grow your audience and sell more products we are going to address one of the most popular questions we get. We are continuing the conversation in our mastermind group so head over to share your blogging tips and ask any related questions: www.growwithusmastermind.com. One of the questions that we hear the most about blogging from TpT sellers is, "What do I blog about?" And, we totally get it. Choosing a blogging topic can be overwhelming because there are so many things that you can blog about. So, today is all about blogging with intention. What is intentional blogging? Intentional blogging is when you really focus on your main niche when writing your blog post. You blog about the things that you are an expert on and stick to it. You think about a call to action for each post and intentionally think about how you craft the post to encourage people to act on that call to action. The purpose of writing a blog post can be to highlight a product, give away a free resource, make a push to get email addresses, or just giving valuable content for your target audience. Both Angie and I used to just blog about whatever we were thinking about. We didn't give it a lot of thought and there wasn't a real strategy. But, if we are going to take the time to write a post and people are taking their time to come and read it, then we want to be purposeful about what we want to accomplish. Blogging intentionally helps you make the best use of your time I have plenty of old blog posts that I'm working through and trying to move towards having a purpose and a call to action. Blog posts can be good for getting traffic to your blog, but when you have little time to work with, you have to be really intentional about what the blog post is geared towards. You want to have a goal for your blogs so you don't just go on a random tangent. Angie shares that blogging doesn't come naturally for her. So, when she is going to blog she wants it to be well worth her time and I couldn't agree more. How to blog intentionally The first step to blogging intentionally that both Angie and I use, is to think of what we wanted to accomplish from our blog post. Ask yourself what action you want people to take after they read your post. Then, work backward. For example, if you have a resource that has lost traction and sales have really dropped off, write a blog post about it. You could give teachers ideas on how to use it in their classroom and even create a freebie from it. This can help to boost sales again. When we create new products, we spend a lot of time promoting them. But, then after a year or two, they start to lose their traction. I like to track my biggest sellers and then when I notice a big drop, I know it's time to make some changes. This could be updating the covers and preview images and writing a really useful blog post that highlights the product. When you look at the data and you're freaking out because something isn't selling, it's nice to know that you can go and write a blog post about it and it will help it gain traction. This doesn't mean it's a quick process. Blogging is more of a long game, but it's nice to feel like you have some control over it. So, instead of sitting and staring at a blank screen trying to decide what to write, start by thinking about what you want to accomplish and work backward. Create a 3 part blog post Sometimes I split my blog post into three parts. The first post is about the topic. It might be a how-to type post or something like that. The second post is something like tips on how teachers are using the resource in the classroom or a "here's what you can do with the resource" type post. The third post is a roundup of quick tips and social m

Getting Ready for the TpT Conference! TpT Conference Tips and More Jun 18, 2019

The TpT Conference is coming up and we are discussing everything you need to know. But, if you still have questions about it, join us in the MasterMind discussion too. You can find it at www.growwithusmastermind.com. It's time to get ready for the TpT conference! We'll be there attending and presenting this year and we're super excited. This is our favorite time of year as TpTers. We get to see friends and meet new people. What we love about the conference April and I have the same two things that we love the most about the TpT conference—the people and the renewed energy. The people At home, most people don't really "get" what we do. But, when we arrive at the conference, we are surrounded by people that "get it". They understand exactly what we do and what we deal with, both the good and the bad. Your significant other or family and friends don't really understand how frustrating it is to get a question through the Q&A. They don't know the feeling you get when you hear that notification. The renewed energy When you head home from the conference you take with you so much renewed energy. You'll feel ready to take on the tasks that you need to in order to grow your business again. April attended the first conference but I didn't. I had such FOMO (fear of missing out) after that first year that I haven't missed one since. If the conference is still open for registration when you read this, head over to the site and get signed up! There have been a lot of questions bouncing around in the group, so we are going to answer the most common questions that we're seeing. But, first a little about our workshop This year, April and I are going to be presenting a workshop at the conference. It's called The 30 Day Blogging Challenge. We are going to blog like we're supposed to over this summer and want to invite you to join along with us. During the workshop, we're going to outline everything you need to do in order to blog intentionally and then set up accountability for you when the conference is done. When you leave the conference, you will have a plan in place and know what blog posts you're going to create. During the workshop, we'll be there to help you one-on-one. That's why we love workshops! Once you leave the conference we are going to have three weeks of accountability for you and follow up podcasts. Not able to attend the conference? You can still join in afterward with the podcast episodes and accountability. TpT Conference Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Q - What should I bring to the conference? Laptop - YES I always bring a laptop to the conference with me, but I don't usually take it to sessions. However, if you're coming to our workshop, it will be helpful for you to bring your laptop to it. It's nice to go back to the room at night and be able to start trying out the things that you're learning. It's also not uncommon to see a group of TpTers sitting around with their laptops out working side-by-side. And, you might meet new people that you want to show something from your store or blog or check out on theirs. Handouts - You decide I used to print out all the handouts beforehand and bring them with me to take notes on. But, now I find that it's more beneficial for me to bring one notebook that I call my "[Year] TpT Conference Notebook". I put all my notes from sessions and workshops in here so I can go over them once I get home. April likes to save all the handouts digitally. She often switches up what workshop she's going to or jumps in on one that has room when she's there. The digital downloads are helpful when they include links. Our workshop is going to have a blog post template organizer. However, we made it a fillable form so y

Honoring the spouses that help make it happen Jun 04, 2019

There is a lot to wrap your head around when building a TpT business. Today we are taking a break from business strategy and honoring TpT spouses. But, if you are looking for answers and tips for your business, head over to our MasterMind group: www.growwithusmastermind.com. If you're building a TpT store, you realize how much work really goes into it. It's not a get-rich-quick type of business (not that those really exist anyway). It takes a lot of time and effort whether you are still teaching in the classroom or not. And, then you add all of your regular life to-do's into the mix and it can feel like something's got to give. Enter, the TpT spouse. TpT spouses are amazing! They do a lot and don't usually get a lot of credit. They support us in our business goals, listen to us stress about things they might not understand, help free up our time so we can work on our business, and some even start to work in the business with us. So, April and I decided that it was time to honor these spouses. We brought on 3 of the TpT husbands that we know so they could share their perspective. Scott: The husband behind the Not So Wimpy Teacher First up on our podcast was Scott the husband behind Jamie at the Not So Wimpy Teacher. When Jamie first started the business, Scott thought of it as a hobby. He that she could use it to maybe earn enough money to cover her TpT expenses. Jamie was a teacher and Scott was working full-time at night as a nurse. At that time they also had four young children at home. He first started helping Jamie out by taking over more of the household chores. Since he worked at night he had a chance to get groceries and clean the house before the kids were home from school. This allowed his wife time to work on her TpT store while she was home in the evening. But, after downloading the app on his phone he started to hear all the cha-chings and realized the potential of the business. He started helping her with pinning so she had more time for creation. Then, he started listening to podcasts and watching tutorials to learn more about it. As the business continued to grow he was able to cut back on his nursing shifts to take on more of the tasks for the business, eventually quitting his job altogether. Scott now handles Facebook and Pinterest advertising for the store as well as the finances and technical issues. Favorite things about the TpT business Scott admitted it's the best career he's ever had. He enjoys having more time at home and no longer misses his kids' concerts or games. And, he gets to spend more time with his wife. He also loves that there is always something new to learn. Advice for others When working with your spouse, make sure you know what your roles are so you aren't always second-guessing each other. Scott and Jamie use the Wunderlist app to keep track of their business to-dos. This helps to keep their business life and personal life separate. Instead of talking about business all day long this allows them to add things they think of to the app to address once they are working again. Peter: The husband behind Performing in Education Peter is April's husband and also a high school government teacher. He admitted that he was not

Creating Online Professional Development Courses May 21, 2019

Selling online courses is a great way to add an additional income stream to your TpT business. If you feel this is outside of your wheelhouse, you won't want to miss this information. We are continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what questions you have about creating an online course: www.growwithusmastermind.com. Selling online professional development courses is a big part of my business. Courses and getting teachers to use your resources go hand-in-hand. You can reach a large audience by combining the two. And, if you're getting a lot of questions about how to implement your resources, it's an effective way to answer questions and teach the information. I'm going to share what I've learned throughout the past few years of online course creation, but first, here's a little of my story. A little of my own story creating an online course Two years ago I decided to put together a video series about project-based learning. I released the first video and started getting a lot of questions. I would refer people to a blog post or video that I had already created answering their questions. Then I realized I should put it all together in one easy to access place in more of a course platform. This concept was starting to become really popular in the TpT world. Another reason I thought it would be a good idea to tackle a course is that my resources are for 3rd - 5th grade, but I was getting lots of questions from teachers outside of this range. I didn't have any resources for them but wanted to be able to help them use project-based learning in their classrooms. I was using project-based learning in my own room, and with a class of 35 students, many struggling to learn English, I had really learned to simplify the process. So, I felt I had a lot to offer knowledge so I started putting the course together. [caption id="attachment_1252" align="aligncenter" width="662"] Original Course (On Teachable)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1253" align="aligncenter" width="662"] Original Course (On Teachable)[/caption] The results of my online course Launching the course was a lot of work but I started to get people buying it. And, I was really surprised at how many districts were interested in it. I put the course out there and districts were wanting to purchase 20 or 30 licenses for it. It was surprising to me because I didn't know districts would pay for this. But, the people they bring in for training charge a lot of money and they're barely able to scrape the surface of whatever it is they are trying to teach. Teachers need actionable steps. Another reason districts were interested is when you hire people to come to the school you have recommendations or website to look at but aren't really able to see how they are teaching the teachers. I think this helped me because when my course was created, I had a lot of videos out there that they could watch beforehand. They could see how I did the training. This was good for getting both teachers and districts to sign up. With that quick overview, here are the answers to the questions we hear most often about course creation: When is the right time to create a course? I think if you have something that teachers are constantly emailing you about, whether it's good feedback or something they're confused about, then it's time to create a course. If teachers are having problems in their classroom, many are willing to pay for the training to learn what they

Easily Create Email Opt-ins with Guest Sarah from Biz Template Babe Apr 23, 2019

We've talked in the past about engaging your email opt-in list. Today we are going to dive into how to build your list. We are continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share your two cents and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com. This definitely isn't the first time that we've mentioned email lists on the Grow with Us Podcast. We've talked in the past about email sequencing, which you can find in the following episodes: Setting Up Angie's Email Sequence - Episode 5 What We Send to Our Email Lists - Episode 6 Email List Building with Guest Jennifer Findley - Episode 15 On this episode, we are going to dive head first into email opt-ins. We had Sarah from Biz Template Babe on the podcast and discussed everything from what you should include in your opt-in to how to create templates to make it even easier. You need to be able to get people on your email list in order to have the rest of it matter. For email, both Angie & April use ConvertKit. If you'd like to sign up using our link, it costs you nothing and we get a small commission. We offer all that use our links some exclusive videos to help you get started and set up on ConvertKit. For pretty opt-ins, we both LOVE Thrive Leads. Click here to check them out and use our affiliate link. Who is Sarah and What is Biz Template Babe? I recently came across a Facebook ad that mentioned templates for email opt-ins. It definitely caught my attention. Creating opt-ins can be incredibly time consuming and the idea of a template to help me out was enough to make me click the ad. The ad was from Sarah at Biz Template Babe. I ended up buying her templates. Now Angie and I both use them and want to let all of you know about them. Like most entrepreneurs, Sarah did a few things before arriving at her current business. She started out doing interior design and eventually moved into blogging a few years back. As she worked on building her own blog and business, she saw how long it was taking her to create things like sales pages, landing pages, Facebook ads, and other content. Even with the experience she had doing graphic design work from her time as an interior designer, it was still overwhelming and time-consuming. She noticed that there were a lot of pros online that had templates they used within their business, but she didn't really see much on the creative side as far as layouts and design. When she did this in her own business she found that she was saving 50-60% of the time that she previously spent doing this kind of work. That's when the idea came to her that she could create these templates to help other businesses as well. It's a lot like what we do as TpTers. We originally created resources that helped us in our classrooms and then found we could help other teachers by selling them as well. Canva templates The templates that Sarah creates and sells are created in Canva. She found that many small business owners don't have the graphic design software to use. If you aren't familiar with Canva, it's an online g

Building Your Facebook Ad Audiences Apr 09, 2019

Facebook is a powerful way to reach your audience. However, you have to know how to find your audience. Join us in our Mastermind Group as we share some of the audiences that we use and the goals we have for testing our new audiences. If we're all being honest, as TpTers running Facebook ads can be a little frustrating because we are limited in what we can do. We can't run conversion ads and we can't see all the data that we'd like to see. However, there are still plenty of ways that we can be successful with Facebook ads. The key is creating the right audiences. We aren't claiming to be Facebook experts here, but we're going to share with you what we have found has worked the best for us along with what we look for when creating new audiences for our Facebook marketing efforts. A few terms to know Before we jump into our tips we want to address a few terms we're going to use. This might be stuff that you already know but I want to clear up a few key terms we are going to talk about just in case anyone is unfamiliar with them. Cold audience = People that don't know who you are and have never heard your name. Warm audience = People that have heard of you and maybe even interacted with your store or social media accounts. Look-alike audience = An audience you create to match a warm or hot audience that you already have. The advantage of this is it creates a cold audience that has a better chance of being interested in what you have to offer. What to do before focusing on ads Before focusing on getting people to come to your store make sure your store is ready for an audience. Make sure you have really good descriptions along with quality photos. How much should we be spending on ads? Before we jump into the actual dollar amounts of what to spend on an ad I want to address the way you think about this budget. When your budget is tight it can be hard to think about spending $20 on a Facebook ad. But, instead of thinking this as just an expense you need to think about it as an investment. If you spend $20 but end up making $40 then you're not losing any money. You might not get that money back until the following money, but running ads is an effective way to increase your reach and grow your business. When I first started running ads, I was doing it for small resources and I would set the budget for the same price as the resource. That way as long as I could sell one product I had made back the money I spent on the ad. Doing this allowed me to start testing out different ad components and audiences to see what worked and what didn't. Over time, I started to increase my budget a little at a time as I became more confident that I'll get more sales from the ads and audiences. You also want to remember that it's not just about getting people to your store to buy that one resource you're advertising. Your ads are helping introduce you to a new audience. That means even if they don't buy the resource the first time, or if you only break even on your ad, that new audience could continue to come to your store, sign up for your email list, or continue interacting with you in other ways. They may keep buying more resources in the future because they were able to find you from that one ad. By the numbers When it comes to cost-per-click the number I try to stick to really depends on the audience that I'm targeting. Overall, for a cold audience both April and I try to stay to no more than 15 cents per click. However, if I'm targeting the people that are on my email list, I'm willing to spend a little more because I know they are a warm audience. Now, it's also important to know that the amount per click can depend on the day of the week also. For example, on Saturday the price might go up to 25 cents per click but then drop again during the weekdays. How to tell if you're

Protecting Your Digital Resources & Other Legal Questions Mar 26, 2019

The legal side of running a business can be confusing. As TpT sellers there are a lot of questions about what we should be doing and shouldn't be doing that come up in our Mastermind Group. We are addressing those today and if you want to continue the conversation at www.growwithusmastermind.com. We know the legal side of running your business is a heavy and serious topic. But, we also know it's so important to help you grow your business that we address these types of topics. So, we brought a guest on our podcast to help answer all our TpT seller legal questions. Brittany Ratelle is an attorney who helps creative entrepreneurs build more confident businesses. She provides 1:1 custom legal services and digital products/education to help creative entrepreneurs get a handle on the business side of their growing empires. She believes in the power of cute office supplies AND good contracts and hosts a weekly podcast, Law & Wit: Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs, with business tips and inspiring founder stories. Brittany lives with her husband and four kiddos in her beautiful hometown of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and loves to rock out in her minivan, knit, sew, ski, and issue empty threats to her sewing machine. What we love about Brittany is that her whole focus is creative entrepreneurs and because of that she gets the unique situations of TpT sellers and bloggers. So many times it seems like it's impossible to find professionals in the legal and financial world that really "get"what it is that we do, but she's definitely one of them. Are there DIY Legal Templates I can use? April actually found Brittany because on her website she has an incredible library of DIY legal templates in her store. As an attorney she knows exactly what business owners need. But, she also knows that many that are starting out in the creative entrepreneur world don't have the budget to run out and pay an attorney to draft up every document, contract, and legal website wording that they need to have. Her templates are created to help for those that can't afford that one-on-one service. The templates are made to be do-it-yourself and are super easy to fill out. It doesn't take a lot of your time and won't leave you feeling confused. And, they are GDPR compliant, so you don't need to worry about that hype either. How do I handle customer testimonials? Using customer testimonials isn't as simple as slapping a quote, image, and link of someone up on your website. You want to make sure you have their permission to do so. The last thing you want is someone that loved your products or service to feel caught off guard because they saw themselves on your website unexpectedly. Right now, April is gathering testimonials herself and using one of Brittany's templates. This way she'll know that everyone has signed off and she can move forward. To make it easy, she's uploading the template in HelloSign so it's easy to send electronicall

Growing a Following with Chatbots Mar 12, 2019

We recently asked our Mastermind group what they wanted to know about using chatbots. The questions that came in were all over the board from basic to really complex. So, we did our best to address them during episode 25. If you aren't already in our group, we invite you to join us at www.growwithusmastermind.com. Let's start at the very beginning. A chatbot is basically when you have the computer program, or bot, set up to interact with your customers and followers. The bot is programmed to give certain responses based on what the person it's interacting with says. You will see this on a lot of websites when the chat box pops up. But, you'll also see it when you go on a Facebook page for a major company and the Messenger box pops up right away. A chatbot will interact with you to answer your questions the best that it can. And, you can eventually make it to a real person, but many times the bot has the answers that you're looking for. For example, you can program it to say things like "How may I help you?" or "What are you interested in today?". Using a bot like this is really complex, so Angie and I aren't currently using ours like that. Instead, we are going to share how you can use it similar to an email list. The chatbot we recommend Angie and I both use Manychat as our bot option. We don't have an affiliate link to this and we don't benefit from passing the name along to you, but we do highly recommend it. The basic unpaid version allows you to set up chat using Facebook Messenger. But, it also has an area where people can opt-in to your chat list. This allows you to automatically communicate with the followers that have joined. Essentially, we're using it get people to opt in just like we would an email list. This is really beneficial because we've noticed they have much higher open rates than what our emails are getting. But, we also offer them through the chatbot the chance to sign up for our email list. It's super easy to do, but you do have to have the paid version in order to do that. It's a nice option because it allows you to keep communicating with them regardless of how Facebook changes its rules in the future. But, even if you don't want to go with the paid version you can still benefit from using the bot. Manychat Features From what I can tell, Manychat is one of the most widely used bots. There are a lot of features to it. I watched a lot of YouTube videos when I first signed up for it to learn how to use it. This helped me be able to show Angie how to do it. Once I showed her the first time it was really easy for her to do on her own the next time. So, as I mentioned earlier, the paid version is completely worth it because it allows you to build your email list. But, feel free to start with the free version. Manychat connects with your business Facebook page. Then, any messages you send from Manychat will come from your business page. Any subscribers you get are going to be subscribed through the same page. Audience tab The Audience tab allows you to see everyone that has subscribed to your list. Make sure you pay attention to the "Live Chat" section. I missed this when I was first getting started. The live chat is used when someone replies to an automated message or bot and you don't have an automated message set up as a response. This allows you to pick up the conversation. It works similar to your email inbox. Growth tools Pretty much everything email services like Convertkit (affiliate link) do, Manychat can do too. You can segment your Manychat subscribers, tag them, add them, and create automations. Growth tools are essential

The Answers to Your Financial Questions Feb 26, 2019

We recently asked our Mastermind Group what questions they had about finances as TpT sellers. We received lots of questions about both personal and business finances. If you aren't already in our group we encourage you to join in the conversation at www.growwithusmastermind.com. Today we brought a special guest on our podcast to talk about something that isn't discussed much among TpT sellers—finances. Josh Bannerman is a Certified Financial Planner at Bannerman Wealth and he is the co-host of the Stacking Benjamins podcast. He has 20 years of experience. And, he works with over 120 families in 30 different states. We were super excited to have him as a guest. Josh did an amazing job of answering our questions. We are going to do our best to sum up his answers, but if you want to learn more about handling your finances we urge you to listen to the full podcast. As current or former teachers our retirement planning has always been handled for us by the school district. When it comes to the money you make from your TpT business, it's all on you. That can leave a lot of questions. What retirement planning advice would you give someone that's still teaching and currently has a pension? Josh shared that this really boils down to what your end goal is for your TpT income stream. You need to think through if this is something you're doing to improve your lifestyle today or if you also want it for help improving your retirement, saving for your kids' college funds or something else. That answer largely determines what you do with your money after you earn it and pay taxes on it. While you don't have much say about what happens with your pension plan, it's a different world when you're running your own business, even if it's just a side hobby. You can save for retirement through SEP IRAs, simple IRAs, 401ks, or you can even set up your own pension plan. It all depends on how much money you have to use for retirement on top of what you're already doing. You can contact online brokerage companies such as Schwab or Fidelity. It only takes a few minutes to do and your tax professional can tell you how much you can invest based on what your previous yearly income was. If you are just getting started with earning money in your business, Josh recommends that you use some of the money for retirement planning and keeping some for lifestyle improvement. What retirement planning financial advice would you give those that are completely on their own and no longer employed by a school? Planning for retirement is a lot easier when your employer is automatically withholding a portion of your income for you. Now that you are working for yourself you need to set it up the same way. If you don't automatically have money going into savings and retirement lifestyle inflation is going to creep up on you and stake all your money. Have you ever noticed that the more money that comes in the more money you think you need to come in? This is normal for most people. You think if you can just get to $X each month everything will be easier. But, then you get to that amount and get used to spending the extra and find yourself in the same place again. So, when you leave the classroom, set up those automatic systems on your own. You can work with a tax planner or investment firm to get it set up. You are now in charge of your own retirement so you need to be proactive about it. Do you suggest we take our money out of the 403b? The 403(b) is nothing more than just a shell, it's a line item. What you have inside of that shell could be good or it could be awful. It all depends on the choices that your district had and the decisions they made when getting it set up. Some plans won't allow you to take the money out or move it until you reach a certain age. If that's so, or if you feel that you have a good setup with the 403(b) plan then it's important to remem

Best Practices to Grow Your Audience with Instagram Feb 12, 2019

Today we are going to jump into how to use Instagram to connect with your audience and best practices to build your brand through the platform. If you want to continue the conversation join us at our Facebook Mastermind group www.growwithusmastermind.com and let us know what's worked for you and what questions you have. If you haven’t already, join our group to find the support and accountability you need to grow your TpT business. April and I were really excited to have Jacqueline Ortiz from The Little Ladybug Shop come on the podcast to share with us her Instagram tips and trick.s Jacqueline's had a lot of success growing her brand and followers through the platform. A little of Jacqueline's Instagram story Jacqueline started doing TpT back in 2015. At that time her focus was on Pinterest and FaceBook. However, she started to notice a shift for bloggers and sellers starting to use Instagram. She's found that a lot of teachers are now using the platform a lot like Pinterest. It's a faster way to scroll through and find resources you're interested in and new teachers to follow. So, in 2017 she started to really focus on Instagram. She started to grow her following and find other teachers to collaborate with. Today she has a little over 20K follower and her platform is the 3rd largest traffic source for her store and one of the top sources for her blog. From our podcast conversation, here are the best practices to use to grow your TpT store and following on Instagram. Use hashtags Using hashtags is a great way to help teachers find you that aren't already following you. One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that you can also use hashtags on your Instagram Stories. If people search these hashtags they can find your stories as well as your regular posts. When you look at your insights for your stories you're able to see how many people found your story from searching with those hashtags. Engage with your audience Instagram is just like any other platform if you want to grow your following you need to engage with your audience. One of the best ways to do this is to know when your audience is online. Jacqueline, April, and I have all found that the time when the most amount of our followers are online is in the evening. Because of that, our posts perform better when we post them during the evening. If we post earlier in the day there just isn't as much engagement with the posts. You also want to make sure that you are responding to any comments that are left on your post. Be consistent It seems like it comes up time and time again, but consistency truly is key. Jacqueline shared that she tries to post to her feed at least four times a week. The more consistent you are the more people will see your posts. But, if you disappear for a while, when you come back and start posting again you won't get the same reach that you were getting when you were being consistent. There are some tools that you can use to stay help you stay consistent. They can also help you post at those crucial times of day when your followers are on the platform. Tailwind has some great tools to help you if you are using that resource. If you don't use Tailwind, you can do what I do. You can actually create draft posts directly on Instagram. Earlier in the day, I will start to create my post but before hitting to publish I will hit the back button. It asks me if I want to save the post as a draft. Then, I set a timer on my phone to go off each evening. When the time goes off all I have to do it go in and hit publish. Protect your time A

Exploring the New and Lesser Known Pinterest Features Jan 29, 2019

Today we are going to dive into Pinterest features that are either newer or ones that many people don't seem to know about. We'd love to hear in our Facebook Mastermind group www.growwithusmastermind.com what's been working for you and what hasn't on Pinterest. There has been lots of chatter recently about some of these features. If you haven’t already, join our group to find the support and accountability you need to grow your TpT business. But, before we jump into out talk on Pinterest we have some exciting news to share—we're going to presenting at the TpT conference this summer in Austin, Texas! We will be offering a workshop at two different times on the final day of the conference where we will be doing a 30-day blogging challenge. We are going to focus on helping you get organized and ready to go with your blog. So, look for us in July! Now on to Pinterest... Pinterest features for your TpT business Today, we're getting into a lot of Pinterest features that are either fairly new or ones that just don't get a lot of attention. DISCLAIMER: We haven't personally used every single one of these options. We have tested some, but there's always more testing that could be done. We're giving you our opinions, but it's important that you do testing for your TpT business to see what works best for you. Promoted pins Last year we did a podcast episode on the One-Tap Ads when they first came out. During that conversation, we shared our initial thoughts along with some tips about making sure your pin showed all the details. Now, six months later, we have some updates. We've found that the things they were telling us in the beginning, weren't necessarily true. When we did exactly what our Pinterest advisor shared we found that either no one was seeing our ads or the wrong people were seeing them. Either way, it's not what you want. Here are two things we've found that haven't worked for us: Limiting our keywords too much - On the advice that we heard about keywords last year, we tried cutting down on the number that we used. I tried keeping it closer to 15 and it was still running on my maximum budget. This wasn't effective. When we boosted our keywords back up to 20-30 per pin we started to see more traction again. Allowing Pinterest to Expand our keywords - There is an option to allow Pinterest to expand on your keywords for you. Angie shared some eye-opening information with me on this one. When she allowed Pinterest to expand her words they included things that weren't really the best fit. So, she was paying to show up in places where people weren't really looking for what she had to offer. She was better off doing the research herself and not allowing Pinterest to add keywords for her. One tip that Angie shares when it comes to keywords is that you should be going back and revieiwing which keywords are performing well for you. If you have keywords that aren't converting than delete them to get the biggest bang for your buck. Long pins We've been warned that Pinterest wants pins to use a 2:3 ratio. In our tests, we've found that our long pins are still performing very well, even better than the new pins we created at the specified ratio for the same products. Now, we can't be 100% sure that these long pins aren't performing better becaue they have already been run and had activity on them, or if it's the longer size that draws more attention. But, I did notice that on mobile feed my long pins are getting cut off at the bottom. It appears they are still longer than the 2:3 ratio, but it's cutting off some of the important infor

Yearlong Planning and Organization with Guest Kristin Rivera Jan 15, 2019

We are a few weeks into 2019 and it's that time of year when everyone's focused on goal setting and planning (or trying to make sure they're still sticking to their goals)! Last month we talked in our mastermind Facebook group www.growwithusmastermind.com about everyone's goals for the year. Planning and getting organized is the key to achieving those goals. If you haven't already, join our group to find the support and accountability you need to get it done. Angie and I are coming in strong to 2019! We both ended up taking pretty much the entire month of December off from our TpT businesses. Some of it was intentional and some was due to all the illness that floats around this time of year. But, regardless of the reason, it gave us the break we needed to clear our heads, do some goal setting, and create plans for the new year. Sharing our goals This year I have several goals. I'm working to switch from working full-time to working part-time. That doesn't mean I want to scale back my business, just the time I'm spending on it. My goal is to take every Friday off and to stop working by 3:30 pm each day. This will allow me to devote my time to my family once they arrive home. When it comes to my business I have the following goals: Organize business and tax documents Be consistent on my blog and social media Focus on one big project instead of a bunch of tiny ones Angie shared that her goals for the year are to blog and email consistently, spend two to three hours a day working at her treadmill desk, and stop working each day when her kids and husband come home. In our Facebook group discussion, almost everyone mentioned a goal that was related to blogging. Angie and I decided our goals were to focus on consistency instead of setting a goal like 'posting 1x a week'. We want to set ourselves up to succeed this year. If you are just starting out blogging I encourage you to listen to our blogging series we did (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Let's get planning! We were super excited to have Kristin Rivera from One Stop Teacher Shop as a guest on the podcast this week. She is the most organized person that I know. She's a planning expert and great at organizing in advance to have more time available. And, I absolutely love her planner (there are print and digital versions) which you can check out at One Stop Planner Shop. Kristin joined us to share her process for year-long planning. Why you want to create a year-long plan Have you ever sat down to a computer to start working and just didn't know where to start? Or, you bounced around from one idea to the next and found that you worked all day and accomplished nothing? That's why you need a year-long plan! Kristin started planning like this because she knew she needed to be more productive and that when there was a plan she was able to get more done and have more time for her family. Having a plan saves you time by helping you know what to work on. It's easy to be busy but when you have a plan you get a lot more accomplished. It helps you work on things that matter. I discovered this for myself when I took off the month of December. There were lots of little tasks that I was busy doing last year that I didn't do in December and my business kept running. It showed me this year I could choose a few of them to focus on and let the o

Promoting New Resources and Resource Lines Dec 04, 2018

2019 is quickly coming which has us thinking about product lines for the new year. So, April and I decided to chat about the strategies that we use for promoting our new products and product lines. We both worked on trying new things this year and have had great results. Here are our favorite, and most successful, strategies: You want to build hype before you release products April and I both admit that we used to stay quiet about the products we were working on. We were worried if we mentioned it someone else would swoop in and steal the idea. But, I'll be honest—getting your audience excited about what you're going to be releasing can really help. In the past, it would take 6 months to a year for our new products to really start gaining traffic. But, it's because we were just posting them to our TpT sites and leaving it at that. It's good to get traffic eventually, but that's not what you want when you've spent time on a product line. Some of the things that I released this year were year-long resources that took me a year to work on. I wanted them to do well right off the bat. That means uploading the resource and hoping for the best wasn't going to cut it. Survey your audience April has experienced a lot of success with surveying her audience before creating resources. There are a few ways that she's done this. The first is by sending a survey to her email list. For example, she created a 5 question survey and asked what standards her audience was interested in. When she got the results back she started making resources for the top 3 replies. By surveying her audience she knows that she's creating resources that her audience wants to buy. It also helps with the opposite. In one survey she had a list of ideas that she was thinking of creating and asked what people were interested in. A few of the ideas didn't get any votes. If she would have created them, there wouldn't have been interest in them and it would have been a waste of her time. Here are a few examples of questions that she has asked: Which of these options would you prefer... Digital vs. print What standards do you want to see included? You can use Survey Monkey to create a free survey to start getting ideas from your audience. Once you have the product or product line ready to go you can email them with the link. You already know they're interested in it because they told you in the first place. Do you need to entice your audience to respond to a survey? April has done a drawing for a gift card as a way to entice people to complete the survey but found that it wasn't necessary. When she polls her audience on what they are looking for they want to give their opinions because it means that products will be created that they are interested in. This is motivation enough. Discounting products Another strategy that we like is offering a discount on products for a limited time. For example, you offer 1/2 off for the first 48 hours. If you let all your followers know about the discount it's a great way to get a jump start on traffic to your new resource. I also like this strategy because it helps to get some quick sales and feedback. Then when people show up to your site there are reviews from people that have already purchased it and love it. Another way to benefit from this strategy is to include a link for people to join your email list if they like the product so they can be notified when the next one comes out. April used this idea and around 10% of the people joined her list, which was around 500 people. She made around 30 products in this resource line. Each time she released one she was able to notify this list and they bought the products. Provide a sneak peek Another strategy that I like to use is providing a sneak peek of the product by posting it on Instagram before releasing it. Then, I have a special opt-in so if they're interested in t

Tips & Tools for Optimizing Your Blog Traffic Nov 20, 2018

We've made it to the final episode of our blogging series! We've already covered the Blogger vs. WordPress debate and SEO strategy. Blogging is a highly effective way to grow your TpT business. That's why we've been working to answer some of the most common questions about starting and running a blog. Our series is ending after today, but we'd love to keep the blogging conversation7 going with you. Join us over at our Facebook page www.growwithusmastermind.com . It’s a great place to get support and advice when you are struggling to build your Teacher Pay Teachers businesses. Some links in this post are affiliate links. We appreciate your support of the podcast! Ok, we know there are some of you that are glad this series is coming to an end because you just don't want to buy into the idea that running a blog could help you grow your business. Angie and I completely understand. But, we have a little proof to help convince you that it's worth your effort. Angie's recent success If you've been following along with our series then you know that Angie has struggled with keeping up with her blog. She's been open about it in the podcast. She's had her website up for years but has only had a few posts on it. Well with the recent blogging challenge that we ran in the Facebook group she was motivated to get consistent with her blog posts. She posted a few times over the summer, once in September, and twice in October. Her goal is to shoot for two posts each month and to focus on making them high-quality and valuable to the reader. Wait until you hear what happened! Month to month comparison April: 4,000 pageviews 250 clicks to TpT store October: 21,000 pageviews 3,200 clicks to TpT store If you've been saying that blogging can't really impact your TpT store just look again. The numbers don't lie. As Angie has gotten more consistent with posting on her site her numbers are going up. She had around an 1180% increase in the number of clicks that she got to her TpT store from her website. Her blog is now her second highest referral to her store. Obviously, these results are super exciting and helping motivate her to want to stay consistent. Where her traffic came from While Angie did have several old posts on her blog the vast majority of her traffic from October came from her new posts. She shared a Halloween post that included some freebies and showcased the other resources that she had. She's working to mix evergreen content (blog posts that are always useful) with seasonal and trending topics. Angie is great at being active on social media. So, once she had her posts she shared them on her Facebook page and set them up on Tailwind. She had high engagement with her post on Facebook and the clicks were higher than anything she had experienced before on her page. She also received a lot of traffic from Pinterest. Angie likes to create five different pins for each blog post pulling out different pieces of the blog to connect to. Why blogging works We've touched on this in some other posts, but will touch on it quickly here. Blogging works because it helps to show that you are an expert on what you are talking about. It's one thing for teachers to find your store and locate a resource that might help them, it's a whole other thing for them to find a blog you wrote that shows you know what you're talking about. This helps you to build trust with your audience. And, if that isn't enough, having a blog with good SE

SEO Tips with Guest Noelle Pickering Nov 06, 2018

We're on to round 2 of our blogging series! Blogging is something most of us know we should be doing, but struggle to stay on top of. There are so many questions such as “what platform should I use?” and “how often do I need to blog?”. We are going to address these questions throughout our series, but join us in our Facebook group www.growwithusmastermind.com to start the conversation now. It’s also a great place to get support and advice when you are struggling to build your Teacher Pay Teachers businesses. I think there is one thing that more bloggers new and old seem to have questions about over anything else—SEO! We know it's important, but it seems so overwhelming to figure out what we need to do. Just in case you aren't familiar with the acronym yet, it stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it's what gets your website, webpage, or blog post to show up in the search engine results. A little of what we discussed on the podcast could apply to your TpT store, but what we're really focused on is your blog/website. Introducing our guest We were super excited to have Noelle Pickering from Maneuvering the Middle on the podcast to share SEO tips and strategy. Noelle started her first blog years ago when it seemed everyone was being pushed into starting one. However, she only had a few posts up. She didn't start to take it seriously until she spent time checking out what other industries and niches were doing. She thinks, and April and I agree, that the education niche can tend to be behind the times a little. In 2015 once she followed other blogs, like food blogs, she got the inspiration she needed to fully commit and make a long-term investment into it. She committed to writing regular blog posts, spending the money she needed to on design, and really making it work. Noelle mentioned something I think is worth focusing on for a minute. Any time you are investing, with your time or money, into something to grow your TpT business it's worth giving it your all. This applies to building your email list, creating a newsletter, switching to WordPress, and everything else. If you are investing in it then you need to really commit to doing it well. Best SEO tips and strategies 1. Create high-quality content This has been brought up before on our podcast but it comes in to play once again. You need to post quality content on your site. If you are just throwing up blog posts for the sake of it then it's going to end up hurting your SEO because it's not going to be valuable to your reader. Before you worry about any other SEO strategies make sure you are focused on this. Noelle found that this is the #1 thing that you can do in the eyes of Google. The search engine wants to deliver the most valuable answers as fast and as accurately as possible. If your site meets the needs of what readers are looking for and they stay on your site reading then it lets Google know that your page is a high-quality page. It also helps build your authority with your reader. 2. Choose the right topics and keywords Keywords are always something that comes up when talking about SEO. Keywords are simply the words that you are focusing on in your blog post or on your webpage that your target audience is going to be looking for. They are the words that you are trying to rank for on your page or post. We are going to go further into keywords later in this post. 3. Keep readers on your site This goes along with creating high-quality content. Google and other search engines are looking at things like your bounce rate and how long readers are staying on your site to determine if it should be showing up in the search engines. The longer readers are on your site and the more pages they visit and read while there, the better your SEO is g

Blogger vs WordPress with Guest Danielle Knight Oct 23, 2018

Blogger or Wordpress? That is the question! We promised that a Blogging series was on the way, and here it is! Blogging is something most of us know we should be doing, but struggle to stay on top of. There are so many questions such as "what platform should I use?" and "how often do I need to blog?". We are going to address these questions throughout our series, but join us in our Facebook group www.growwithusmastermind.com to start the conversation now. It’s also a great place to get support and advice when you are struggling to build your Teacher Pay Teachers businesses. Ok, get ready everyone. Today we are addressing the popular debate: Blogger vs WordPress. We were a little nervous to record this episode of our podcast because we've witnessed this debate get a little heated between Blogger fans and WordPress fans. But, the bottom line is there is no one-size fits all solution. We were excited to have Danielle Knight from Study All Knight join us for this conversation. Danielle has used both platforms over the years. She was originally coming on as our Blogger expert, but actually just completed a relaunch on WordPress. She has a lot of knowledge on both and shared why she recently decided it was time to jump back over to WordPress. The pressure to switch to WordPress If you have had a website for any length of time and aren't using WordPress you have probably felt the pressure to switch at one time or another. It seems that everyone is being pushed over to that platform, but there usually isn't a lot of explanation given as to why you should switch. The truth is, we don't think everyone needs to be on WordPress. For some of you, Blogger is going to better. For others, WordPress is going to be what you need to accomplish your blogging goals. It truly depends on what you want from your blog. What we are using on our own blogs Angie and I both use WordPress on our own blogs as well as on the Grow With Us website. We made this decision because there are a few things that we want to accomplish on our blogs that are easier to do using WordPress. While we might be able to do some of these things on Blogger it would require hiring a designer to do the work for us or having to find a workaround. But, we'll dive more into that later. Angie actually found Blogger to be a little confusing to use but knows that there are plenty of people that have had the exact opposite experience. About Blogger Blogger is actually owned by Google. That means it comes up easily in Google searches which is always a good thing when you are trying to grow your TpT business. I really like how Danielle explained it. She said, "Blogger is owned by Google. It is a 'what you see is what you get' HTML editor for you to format a blog that focuses on content." And, she's exactly right. If all you want to do on your blog is publish content (blog posts) then Blogger is great to use. It will allow you to accomplish exactly what you are trying to do. If you are looking for a basic blog then this platform is easy to set up and maintain. Things you should know about Blogger: You don't "own" your site - When you have a site on Blogger you don't "own" your site. You can find a lot of information out there about why this is an issue, but I don't think this is a good enough reason to switch. When I was using Blogger this never created a problem for me. There are limits to what you can do - Blogger pretty much limits you to writing blog posts. If you want to change

Teacherpreneur Struggles: Tips for When You Miss the Mark on Your Goals Oct 09, 2018

Being a teacherpreneur comes with challenges. Do you ever struggle with feeling like a failure because you failed to meet the goals you set for yourself? Or, maybe your sales have dropped from this time last year? If so, you aren't alone. Join us in our Facebook group www.growwithusmastermind.com after checking out this podcast. It's a great place to get support and advice when you are struggling to build your Teacher Pay Teachers businesses. We'll be honest. We want you all to think that we are awesome sellers and that things always go our way. But, that's just not true. We've had failures and flops. We have times when our sales drop. It happens to the best of us. And, we have found that it really helps us to talk to each other during these times. It's a good reminder that we aren't alone and it isn't just happening to us, but it's something that everyone experiences from time to time. We thought if this is something that we struggle with at times there's a good chance you do as well. So, we are addressing it in our podcast. We don't want you to feel alone. Rough times happen to everyone We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make sure that our numbers are always increasing. And, at times we experience an intense feeling of failure when that doesn't happen. It can be frustrating because sometimes it seems like people online are saying things like, "My sales are always up. If your sales are down just run a Facebook ad." But, that's not always the way it works. Honestly, that USUALLY isn't the way it works. Sometimes we just need to give ourselves a break. Life happens, babies are born, the holidays come along, and all sorts of other things that steal our time and attention away from our business. When the twins were born things slowed down for April. They were born in June and when the following January rolled around there was a drop in sales that really made her nervous. She had to sit down and reevaluate things. It's important to remember that dips don't always happen immediately. It can take months for changes to show. Something you are doing right now or not doing right now could be the reason your sales go up or down six months from now. That's why it's all about being consistent in what you are doing to keep moving forward. You need to build the momentum Everything in this business needs momentum. So, if sales drop you may decide to master Facebook sales as a way to increase your sales. But, if you quit after one week of trying you will not see an improvement. People do this a lot and then get frustrated that they aren't seeing improvement. But, there just is no quick fix and advertising isn't always the answer. When April experienced this dip she had to do a lot of thinking about what to do in order to bring sales back up. She focused on getting Tailwind up and back in order, making sure her Pins were getting out there, and looking at what products were doing well and which ones weren't. She made a decision to not let it go any longer and start addressing the areas that needed attention. After a few months sales started coming back. I think one of the most important things to remember when we see a dip in sales is to focus on the things that we can control. This includes things like using Tailwind, posting consistently, and writing blog posts. Not meeting your goals Sometimes the stress comes from seeing a dip in your sales and other times it comes from not reaching a goal you set. Your business might even be growing still, just not by the numbers that you expected and planned for. This can be frustrating and even a little scary. We understand that because both April and I aren't teaching any longer. This is our source of income, so, when the numbers don't do what we expect them to it's kind of alarming. April and I both experienced this with 'bac

Thoughts on Outsourcing Sep 11, 2018

Have you been thinking about outsourcing some of your TpT related tasks? Or, have you tried and had a great experience? Or a bad experience? Join us in our Facebook group www.growwithusmastermind.com where we will further discuss this and many topics related to our Teacher Pay Teachers businesses. I want to start out by defining what we are talking about when we use the word "outsourcing". We aren't talking about editing. Both Angie and I have always used editors. I used to use my husband or a friend. Then, I tried exchanging working with other teachers where I would let them have the resource for free in exchange for their editing services. But, now I have an editor that I pay. You really need someone else to take double check your work for mistakes or things you have missed. It really isn't optional, but having someone edit my work doesn't really lighten my load. When we say "outsourcing", we are talking about taking something that we would normally do ourselves and paying someone else to do it. It could be that they will do it better than we would, or just that they will get it done when we are procrastinating on the task. Either way, we have both found outsourcing to be incredibly beneficial to our TpT businesses. Advantages of outsourcing There are a lot of advantages when it comes to outsourcing. Frees up time There are a lot of things to do as teacher sellers. It can be easy to get so focused on things like keeping up with social media and building a following that it's difficult to have time for product creation. However, you need those products in order to keep growing your business. When you outsource some of those "other" tasks you have the time freed up to create more products to sell. Helps create a workflow Outsourcing has really helped me to establish a workflow. For example, right now I am creating grammar resources right now and have several people helping me with their creation. I am able to create a template and send it to the next person who comes up with questions for the worksheet. We discuss the questions and put finishing touches on them and send it to the editor. When she's finished checking it over we pass it along to the photographer. The photographer prints it out and takes pictures of it. Because of this process, I am able to get the entire process done in half the time it would take me to do it alone. I still get the final say about the work that is being completed along the way. So, the finished product is still exactly what I wanted it to be, but I didn't have to do all the work for it. Helps produce products on a more consistent basis Since beginning to outsource and establish a workflow I am able to produce products on a more consistent basis. I know that the freelancers that I use are waiting to complete their piece of the puzzle on a specific day. If I don't get them what they need in time I delay the entire process. Since I know that someone is waiting on me to get them the information it helps me not to procrastinate. By doing this I can create new products every week. Lets you spend time doing the parts that you like We all have certain tasks that we enjoy more than others. Those tasks that we don't like can delay our process. If you are like Angie and me, you tend to procrastinate on the tasks that you don't like to do. But, if you outsource those tasks to someone else, that enjoys doing them or is more skilled at doing them, you can focus your attention on the parts you like doing. Angie and I can both share plenty of stories of times when we were creating resources and we got stuck. For example, Angie shares about a time she was creating 180 days worth of word problems and how it got to her after a while. Now she thinks about how she could have hired someone to write all the word problems and then she could h

Work-Life Balance Habits Aug 28, 2018

Are you struggling with work-life balance? If so, you aren't alone. It's a struggle that we face too. Join us in our Facebook group www.growwithusmastermind.com where we will further discuss this and many topics related to our Teacher Pay Teachers businesses. We will be completely honest here, we struggle with work-life balance. And, we're guessing that you do too. It seems like this is something that everyone is struggling with right now. I can get a lot done when I work long 12-hour days. But, that's usually followed by burnout, that feeling you get when you can't bring yourself to get anything productive accomplished. It might seem like cranking out large amounts of work at once is a good idea, but if it stops you from doing work the next day, or longer, it's not that helpful. It works better to balance each day and avoid going through the crazy ups and downs. We found an article online that shares 10 habits that successful entrepreneurs have for work-life balance. We'll admit that we could improve in more than one of these areas. Here they are: 1. Set working hours This is hard for us because we are both working on and off throughout the entire day. It can be hard to step away because our work is all around us. We have access to it on our computers, iPads, and phones. We can check on our results when the kids are eating dinner, taking baths, or we just have a minute to ourselves. When you run your own business you could work nonstop 24 hours a day. That's why setting working hours is so important. One way that I have been making progress in this area is by keeping set hours when I am able to check my email. I started doing this because it's really easy to fall down the rabbit hole when checking email. In order to stop wasting so much time on my email, I started checking it only between 6:00 and 6:30 am and then again at 6:30 pm. That's it. Angie's great about setting work hours when the kids are at school but struggles with shutting it down once the kids and her husband are back home. She wants the evenings to be focused on family time, but it's so easy to think of something that needs to be done that should be a "quick" little thing. But, we have both found that all these "quick" little work tasks really add up and steal time from our non-working hours. This leads us to #2. 2. Unplug when you're not working This is something that we are constantly thinking about doing, but it's difficult to actually do. Personally, I find myself on my phone a lot during my downtime and I usually regret it. I end up feeling bad from just staring at the screen for so long. I actually read something that shared how many successful CEOs have hobbies that aren't computer related. Outside of their working hours, they don't hang out on technology and their families don't either. Now that TpT is a source of income and "work" it shouldn't also be a hobby. It's important to have time that you unplug, step away and focus on other things. This is one reason why I wish that they would just get rid of the TpT app (I know, I know). I end up checking the app about a thousand times a day. It's so easy to do, but it causes me not to be present in the moment that I'm in. Doing this actually steals time away when I'm spending time with my family. When I really think about all the little things I do like this throughout the day, I probably waste at least 5 or 6 hours a week on things that don't really matter. In the podcast, Angie and I talked about a few ways to fight this. The first is to try putting my email check tactic to work with our social media accounts and only allow ourselves to check a few times a day. The second is to batch work like social media posts. If we can devote some of our working time t

Is My Facebook Ad Successful? Aug 14, 2018

How can you tell if your Facebook ads are successful? Join us in our Facebook group www.growwithusmastermind.com where we will further discuss this and many topics related to our Teacher Pay Teachers businesses. Disclaimer: We are not Facebook experts. The information that we are sharing is from our personal experience. Please remember to test and analyze your own data to see what is working for you and your audience. You need to do what's best for you and your business. It's really all about trial and error once you have learned the basics. The importance of trial and error Back in Episode 9: Our 3 Goals for Facebook Ads, Angie and I discussed how we feel about Facebook Ad courses. Angie hasn't taken any courses. I took one course a few years ago and wasn't really that happy with it. The person teaching the course had a different style to their page and I ended up feeling like I wasted my money. A course on how to use ads manager might be worth a small investment, $10 or $15. But, ads manager changes on a regular basis so it can be hard to find a course that is current and showing you what the ads manager looks like at that time. So, with that said, let's jump in. Traffic ads We are going to focus on traffic ads in this episode because both Angie and I have had the best luck with these types of ads. With TpT you can't really run a conversion campaign. I wish that we did have the ability to do that with TpT after running a campaign for my webinar recently. They allow you to see the whole funnel and it's a lot easier to tell if the ad is working. However, with TpT a conversion campaign doesn't make sense, so we are sticking with traffic ads for now. The process that we are going to share with you will be specifically for Teachers Pay Teachers sellers that have access to limited data. Most podcasts and trainings will talk about gauging the success of an ad by looking at the direct sale or conversion, which we just aren't able to do. The process of checking the success of traffic ads 1. Give it some time This can be hard to do, but you need to give your ad time to run. The data that you are receiving from Facebook and TpT can be somewhat lagging and you want to get a good picture of what it's doing before you start making changes. I like let my ad run for two weeks and Angie makes sure hers have run for at least a week. 2. Look at spending Once the ad has run for the time period you decide to go with (remember, try to stick to at least a week or two) it's time to look at your spending. Go to Facebook and make sure to figure out the exact date range that your ad has run. Then, find out how much you spent on the ad. 3. Look at sales Now that you have your date range and spending head over to your TpT dashboard. Look at the specific UTM link that you are using on that Facebook ad and look at the sales period during that same time range. 4. Compare spending and sales Compare your sales to your spending to see how well your ad is performing. It's also helpful to look at the sales that you had the week before on that specific product to see if there was a jump in sales when you started running the ad. This is really the most accurate way you can judge if your Facebook ad is performing well. It's very similar to how you look at the data for promoted pins on Pinterest. Important note on cost-per-click It's easy to get caught up in cost per click. I

Pinterest One-Tap Ads: First Thoughts Jul 30, 2018

How has your strategy for Pinterest ads changed since the switch over to everyone having to use the one-tap version of pins to promote? Join us in our Facebook group www.growwithusmastermind.com where we will further discuss this and many topics related to our Teacher Pay Teachers businesses. Disclaimer: This topic is new for all of us. We have spent the last few weeks learning as much as we can about this topic and we are sharing with you. Please remember to test and analyze your own data to see what is working for you and your audience. Update: About halfway through the episode, we talked about closeups showing in the dashboard as more than clicks. My ad rep said that the extra "closeups" where we don't get charged (subtract closeups from clicks) are in this situation: "As far as the swiping through closeups it is only on mobile. if you close up on an ad and swipe to the right it will show a closeup of the next ad on your feed and so on. Some people utilize the platform in this way so you aren't charged when people swipe to a close up of your ads." So to confirm, we get charged on the initial tap, but the weird closeups showing up in our data are because of this feature (which we didn't even know about!) I had no idea this was even possible. I don't think it affects us much, but it does answer that burning question. What exactly are Pinterest one-tap ads? One-tap ads are the new way that we can promote on Pinterest to send traffic to our blogs and stores. Traffic ads are not new and neither is the one-tap option. What is new, is that they took the option away and now all traffic ads are one-tap. Before, users would click on your promoted pin and it would open a close-up version of the ad. Users would click again to be taken to the linked website. You would only pay once they made that second click to go to your website. Now, on mobile, users will click the promoted pin and it will open a close up version of the pin with your website loading at the bottom. There will be a "see more" button users can then click to go to your website or they can just scroll down and the website will open. On desktop, users click on your promoted pin and it immediately takes them to your website with no close up. This is really worrisome to us as we know users are not used to it and may be shocked it opens right into a website. They may click right back out. We pay for each person that clicks to our website and some people may not even end up seeing the site. Also, if sent right to TpT, we don't even get our pixels to fire so we may end up getting nothing for our money if they end up clicking right out because they weren't expecting to leave Pinterest. We are still testing when exactly we get charged. A Pinterest rep told us the initial click is the charge so we may be paying even if they never open or get to out site. Some of our initial data is showing this *may not* be true so we are keeping a close eye on stats. Keep an eye out for a follow-up show in which we further discuss this topic when we have more data. [video src="http://www.growwithuspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/screenrecording_07-26-2018-15-26-57.mp4" ] This is an example from mobile. New Strategies No more letting your pin "ride". We think there will now be seasons for your pins. Before we could let pins go all ye

[Almost] Live from the Teachers Pay Teachers Conference! Jul 17, 2018

We were so excited to be able to record the podcast at the 2018 Teachers Pay Teachers conference! In this episode, we shared our takeaways, and some other attendees came on to share theirs. We also interview Shelly Rees, one of the conference presenters, and the creator of the TpT Focused Success course and group! Find the Focused Success course & group and save $10 off using our affiliate link here. The Early Bird registration rate is sold out, but it's still worth it to register for the 2019 Teachers Pay Teachers conference in Austin! Join the Facebook group at www.growwithusmastermind.com!

Our 3 Goals for Facebook Ads Jul 03, 2018

Disclaimer: This post includes information on how we run our own Facebook ads. Always do what's best for your business, and track your ads carefully to make sure you're not wasting your hard-earned money! There's no exact science What works for one person won't work for another. When we started the episode, Angie & I discussed how shiny Facebook Ads courses can be a waste of money because what worked for that person may not work for you. The best way to learn how to do Facebook ads is to watch videos or take a small course on what everything means in the dashboard - and then taking the time to work towards learning what works best for your business. Ad Budgets Angie shared that when she first started, she would spend daily the equivalent of the price of one sale of the item. Since then, we've grown our budgets to anywhere from $10-$30/day, depending on what we have to promote and the size of the audience. The sweet spot lately has been $10/day for one ad. We both closely track our ads to make sure that we're making money off of them. Goal 1: Selling Products We both use Facebook ads that link directly to our Teachers Pay Teachers stores. Our goal is to directly sell products, so we use TpT's UTM links to track sales from the ads. It's important to note that the UTM links and Facebook data is a bit delayed, so you want to give it a few days to look at data. Angie has used traffic, engagement, and video ads for selling products, but she closely tracks cost per click (CPC) and sales. I use primarily traffic for this. Running product ads to a warm audience that has visited your blog, or in on your email list, is a great way to get sales. I also run these same ads to a cold audience. I often split into two ad sets: one cold and one warm. Angie shared how it's ok to do an engagement campaign (boost) if you're tracking data and it's outperforming the other ad types. It's all about your data, and what's working best for you! Lately, we're loving collection ads instead of just the usual video, image, or carousal posts! We also mentioned the text overlay tool - which helps make sure that your ad will run properly. Goal 2: Getting Seen One of our main goals of ads is to share free resources and ideas with teachers on our blogs. We then sell to these teachers using Facebook ads that allow us to push out ads to people that have visited certain pages on our blogs - thanks to the Facebook pixel. The great thing about this is that you can get super cheap clicks over to your blog with a traffic or engagement campaign, if it's an awesome post or free resource. Video view ads for great videos you made with free targeted teaching ideas are also a way to "warm up" your audience. During the summer is a great way to get information out to teachers that allows them to gather new ideas for their classroom when they head back to school. Not sure what to promote to get seen? Blog posts, detailed videos, and free resources that are related to your biggest, baddest bundle are a good choice. Angie noted that she does really well on sales days because people wishlist items from her store, or visit her store knowing they can find quality resources at a deep discount during the TpT sales. Goal 3: Getting Emails If you've listened to other episodes, you know that Angie and I now both use Convert Kit. We run Facebook ads to get people to sign up for one of our free resources that is valuable to them, and related to one of our big bundles. You can run a traffic ad to a blog post with an opt-in form on it, or you can use a landing page. Lately I've been using more landing pages with the Facebook pixel and running conversion ads instead of traffic. This shows me the cost p

Getting Back to School Ready Jun 19, 2018

What are you doing to get yourself and your brand back to school ready? Please share with us in our Mastermind group at www.growwithusmastermind.com. Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. You don’t have to purchase them through our links, but if you do, it helps us pay for the costs of the podcast and blog! Get Your Teacher Store Back to School Ready Summer is a great time to focus on your store. Teachers are, for the most part, enjoying their summer break and they have more time to get to know you. They have more time to peruse social media and search for new ideas on Pinterest. Summer is when we gear up for the new school year. This episode is packed full of tips and ideas to help you get yourself ready for the back to school push. Blogging Challenge We committed to doing six blog posts in six weeks over the summer. Our blogs are a big focus for us and we really want to give teachers information and ideas for the upcoming school year. We both were struggling with getting those blog posts out so we created the challenge to help us and you stay focused and motivated to complete the posts. It also gives us more stuff to share on social media. Please join us at www.growwithusmastermind.com. We have already started but feel free to jump right in and get moving on those blog posts! Angie struggled during the first week to finish that blog post. But once it was posted, it brought a lot of traffic to her blog and she got a bunch of new email subscribers. Yay! It really validated for her how important those blog posts are, especially during the summer when teachers are looking for new, fresh ideas. April struggled as well but she got it done even with working on a brand new webinar AND having a wisdom tooth pulled! A webinar is great PD for teachers in the summer so if you have a niche in which you can teach others about, a webinar may be good for you! Email We both are focusing on email lately and the blogging challenge is helping us to also get some more opt-ins out there so that we can target them at back to school time. Depending on which opt-in they sign up for, we take that information to send them more targeted emails at back to school time letting them know about sales or resource releases that they may be interested in. We love ConvertKit for helping us to tag and segment our lists to help us be able to target them about what they might be interested in. We send them emails in the summer with resources that they may be interest in for back to school based on what they have liked of ours so far. Pinterest Pinterest ads over the summer do drop in engagement and the click through rate is much lower in June but that is nothing to worry about. We just remind ourselves that we aren't paying if they aren't clicking so we aren't spending. But also that if they are relevant for back to school to keep them going and they will bounce back come July. So if yours are down, don't worry! Even if you are seeing the click but then not seeing the same return on sales, that's because, we think, people are wishlisting more during the summer and then buying during the back to school sale. April did an experiment and had a super low conversion rate on purchases according to her UTM data BUT she saw her wishlist numbers go up a lot during this time. Check out www.growwithus

So You're Thinking of Going Full Time TpT? Jun 05, 2018

Thinking of quitting your teaching job and going full time TpT? Our Stories Leading up to Going Full Time TpT In this episode, we were lucky enough to have Michaela from Especially Education join us as we chatted about quitting our teaching jobs and working on our businesses full time. Michaela shared with us that the main reasons she went full time was because she was struggling to keep up with her business while teaching in the special education classroom. Angie's main reason for going full time TpT was her health. She was getting a lot of migraines during the school year, and it was really hard for her to teach. If you have any health issues that make full time teaching difficult for you, or you care for someone that does, it's really a blessing to have the option to go full time TpT. My main reason for leaving the classroom was having twins. I was due the first day of school and was seriously concerned about balancing TpT, school, and them. Teachers who go back to work the first year after having (or adopting) a baby are serious rockstars. My first year was a struggle, even with full time teaching out of the picture. I worked on my business when the twins slept, and when they turned 1, they started daycare so that I could focus on my business. If you're trying to do TpT full time and have your kids at home, it is a definite struggle. Putting them in daycare was a good choice for them, and for me. They love it. Struggles We all agreed that the biggest struggle with going from the classroom to full time TpT is getting on a schedule and staying motivated. All three of us really struggled the first few months to find a schedule that worked for us. If you're not easily self motivated, full time TpT might be a struggle for you. We miss the students. And other teachers. I shared that my biggest struggle is really missing that interaction with teachers and students. I have a small closed office because I'm not very productive at home, but it doesn't allow me to interact with other people like I would in the school setting. Finding people to connect with during the day has really helped me. I talk to Angie daily, and Michaela mentioned that she has another TpTer she connects with in person (and her husband works from home as well). Routines Michaela has an excellent routine setup. She uses a block schedule and answers emails first thing in the morning (like I do!). In the morning she does blog posts and social media because she works best on resources in the afternoon. Her and her husband meal prep, which is a great way to keep from eating out every day (now that you have the opportunity to do so as a full time TpTer). [caption id="attachment_901" align="alignnone" width="300"] Michaela's Block Schedule[/caption] Angie just focuses on two main things to work on each day: a resource and one additional thing for the business (photos, blog post, social media, etc). She gets overwhelmed and doesn't do anything if she has too much on her list. Like Michaela, she also does resource creation in the afternoon. We use a collaborative calendar so that we can hold each other accountable. I just started a new routine where I get up at 6am, have coffee, eat breakfast, and answer emails. That way, after I drop my kids off at daycare and get to my office, I can start creating. I'm more creative in the morning, so that's when I do all of my resource creation. What We Love About It The flexibility: Hands down, this is the b

BONUS: Summer Blogging Challenge May 24, 2018

Who has some summer blogging goals? WE DO! Read this post to find out how you can participate in our simple Summer Blogging Challenge. This summer, Angie & I have committed to writing six blog posts in six weeks, starting June 1st. From June 1-3, we will be brainstorming our goals & post topics. Each Friday after is our deadline for a post (beginning June 8th). Our goal is to have six quality blog posts that drive traffic to our stores or email list before back to school hits, to increase our traffic overall during BTS and give us content to share during the school year. Want to join us? Join the Facebook group here. Find the Summer Blogging Challenge post (it's the pinned post) to let us know you're interested. Download our Summer Blogging Challenge guide: http://bit.ly/growblogchallenge.If you join in the middle of the challenge, that's ok! Look for the post each Monday for the upcoming week. Make sure that your notifications are turned on for this Facebook group. We will be posting some tips and tricks during the challenge, and weekly accountability threads (On Mondays) for you to post your completed blog posts into at some point that week. We're also planning on recording a podcast episode with some blogging tips. We will be asking for suggestions for the post soon. That episode will come out June 19th. We hope to see many of you join us in this motivational challenge!

What We Send to Our Email Lists May 22, 2018

What do you send out to your email list when they are not involved in a sequence? How often do you email them? Today we are discussing just that along with a special guest, Rachel Davis, from the Elite Edupreneurs Podcast. Rachel also does TpT full-time. Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. You don’t have to purchase them through our links, but if you do, it helps us pay for the costs of the podcast and blog! What do you send in your organic emails to subscribers? There are many different things that you could email out to your subscribers. We recommend testing out different ideas and seeing what resonates with your audience. Use your data to drive your future decisions. What should we link to? What should our call to action be? Every newsletter should have a call to action but it can vary from email to email based on your goal for that email. It is recommended to have one call to action and to make it clear for your subscribers. Vary it from email to email. Test and re-test to see what works! Blog Posts Products New product emails Timely resource Videos Any content made for your business in other areas can be re-purposed into an email Ask them for ideas for future products Ask them for ideas that you can use for future blog posts Ask them for feedback on a resource that you've made and want tested. Ask them for their struggles or what they are currently working on. If we send out a product release email won't that be annoying if people also follow us on TpT and see it there? It is definitely ok to do both. Your subscribers may also be your TpT followers but not necessarily. And even if they are, that doesn't mean that they see everything that you put out. Sometimes people need to see it multiple time to be reminded of it and to finally taking the plunge and purchase. How often do we send out emails? We are actually pretty inconsistent here. We hope to get at least two out per month but it can be a struggle sometimes. We found it works better if we do a bunch at once and schedule them out. It's harder to get them going if you have to keep remembering to go back and compose them each time. Last month April sent out six emails in but not all of her subscribers received all six emails. If she releases a new resource for 5th grade, she will only send to those marked as 5th grade by using tags in ConvertKit or anyone who is not tagged. Then, if they click that link, she has it tag them as 5th grade for future emails. This helps her to really send them relevant information pertaining to their grade level. This is actually one of our favorite features of ConvertKit. Plus, we believe the more targeted you can make your emails, the better your open and click rates will be. Do we send out personal information in emails? We think it's ok to be on the personal side especially if it pertains to what you are emailing them about. But, again, check your data. If your audience likes what you're doing, do more of it! If not, move on to the next idea or do it infrequently. What do we think about the RSS feeds that send out blog posts to followers? April had some strong opinions about this. She feels as though this is not a good idea. Sometimes when those feeds send out, they will give the whole post and give the readers no reason to click over to your blog or website. We want to people on our websites for a few reasons. Facebook Pixel Email Opt-in

Setting Up Angie's Email Sequence May 08, 2018

What did your first email sequence look like? What tips do you have? April has been using email for quite some time now, while Angie is just getting started. With April's guidance, Angie is setting up her first email sequence. You get an inside look at what she included and how it is set up. Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. You don’t have to purchase them through our links, but if you do, it helps us pay for the costs of the podcast and blog! Switching from Mailchimp Angie has been collecting subscribers with Mailchimp for free but recently passed into being charged. She wanted to get things set up and going but wanted to decide first on which company she would go with. She ultimately decided to go with ConvertKit after hearing from so many people how easy it was. She found it super easy to move her list over and it took less than 5 minutes! Now, she is ready to get moving on making it worth the cost. April started on Mailchimp, as well. Then once she reached 2,000 subscribers, she switched to ConvertKit and didn't like it. She then went over to Mad Mimi and was happy there for awhile but it was not very user friendly. It was cheaper but she wasn't seeing it convert to sales. She had about 6 sequences set up. She began getting frustrated with Mad Mimi because she couldn't see the data that she wanted to see. (You know how we love data!) She decided she wanted to improve her sequences and change up her site. She went back to ConvertKit. She reworked her site with a new theme that integrated her opt ins and resources how she wanted. April is very happy with how things are going so far with ConvertKit. Reasons We Love ConvertKit Ease of use. We find it user friendly and could set up our first opt ins quickly. Data. We love the additional data given that was missing before. We can see all the conversions for each opt in to easily see which ones are working for us. Deliver-ability. With a more simple email, it tends to get into more inboxes instead of junk folders. Rules. You can create almost any kind of rule we could think of. Sequences. So easy to set up, get going, and track. Automated. Once set up, it can run itself! Love this...the more we can automate, the happier we are. If you'd like to try it out for yourself, you can get one month FREE by clicking here. We'd be happy to help get it set up for you. April is currently making 4 times what she is spending on her list! Opt-In Angie decided that her first sequence was going to be for her huge holiday close reading bundle. She already had a freebie for it. She decided to use the same freebie as on TpT except she beefed up the freebie to include even more enticing goodies to get people to opt-in! It was helpful that Angie was able to re-purpose something she already had so she could get righ

How We Use Data as Teacher Sellers Apr 24, 2018

What data points do you check to drive decisions as a Teachers Pay Teachers seller? We both use data frequently to make all kinds of decisions about our business. We geek out about all things data. The more insight we have into what's working and what's not helps us so much. In this episode, we discuss the different data points we check and what they can tell us about our resources. We've even scored some awesome info from Benson at Team TpT to help you understand TpT data better. How we use data We use data to drive all sorts of decisions about our business. It can tell us when a resource is popular and that gives us the information we need to make decisions about when to promote a specific resource. It also helps us to decide which resources to make more of. Spoiler Alert: It's not always the ones we love the most. We may gravitate towards a particular resource that we think is great but it may not always be the best choice to be spending our time on that. It can show us if resource line is declining in popularity or if it's just not the best time of year for that particular topic. If we see a decrease in sales, data can help us to figure out why it may be happening. Use a larger set of data rather than a smaller set Benson from TpT told us, "Another piece of advice (more generally about data) is to make decisions using a large set of data. Don't run a promoted pin for only a day or two and then try to decide if it was worth it or not. Set a budget that will last you as long as you possibly can (within reason) and then use that larger set of data to make a decision. Try to always get at least a week's worth of data before making any decisions, because buyer behavior can be all over the place day-to-day. At TpT, we run all of our tests for at least a week, and some for much much longer." Looking at the pin data below, we can see that the pin was more popular different times of the year. Had we just pulled a week worth of this data out, it wouldn't really give us a clear picture of what is happening long-term with a pin. Using dashboard data to decide on promotions We use our dashboard to tell use more about our overall sales, how a particular resource is selling, and even how a resource line is selling. Some of the data points we like to check are: Total sales (Earnings) Conversions Views We change the dates to look at bigger or smaller chunks of time. You have a lot of options here. You can also look at all of that data for your whole store, a particular resource, or a resource line. Just uncheck all and choose the resources you wish to have more info about. There's even a search bar so you don't have to scroll through tons of resources. We take this info and also compare it to last year by checking that box. This is a huge help to see it compared to the year before. This helps us to see if a resource is losing momentum. Using the traffic tab to determine what's working We used to get so frustrated with the UTM links because we knew they were not accurately reporting our data. We felt like we were just throwing money out of the window on promotions and never knew what was working. TpT has been making changes and updating UTM links

Time Management For Teacher Sellers Apr 12, 2018

What time management tips can you give to a teacher seller? We both struggle with time management, but we have learned a few things over the years that has helped. Here are our tips for time management, and some awesome tips from our group! Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. You don’t have to purchase them through our links, but if you do, it helps us pay for the costs of the podcast and blog! Let it go Seriously, just LET IT GO! If it's not important to your business, don't do it. If you don't see a return on your time investment, it's time to let it go. It's hard for us to let things go when others are doing them, but it's so important to focus on the things that help your business the most. Letting things go will free up a lot of precious time. Automate the Less Important Things Over the last year, we've found ourselves automating a lot more. This helps us free up valuable time for the things we can't automate, like product creation. We both use a tool called SmarterQueue to automate posts that get sent to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We don't use Twitter much, but we rely on this tool for a lot of what we do on Facebook. With Facebook organic reach being down, we didn't think it was worth as much time as it used to be to do the posts ourselves. I use it to automate discussion questions in my Facebook groups, which used to take a substantial amount of time. Starting a Facebook group is a huge commitment. Angie uses it to automate her Facebook page queue, so that she has quality content going out all the time, even when she doesn't have time to post. We both use the Solo plan, which is $19.99/month. I used Meet Edgar before, but it's way more expensive for the same exact service. I actually helped beta test SmarterQueue a couple of years ago, so I got the chance to have an impact on the features they developed! [caption id="attachment_780" align="aligncenter" width="257"] Angie's SmarterQueue Post Categories OPC = Other People's Content[/caption] [caption id="attachment_779" align="aligncenter" width="662"] Angie's SmarterQueue Schedule[/caption] We also automate our Pinterest pinning. Check out our Pinterest accounts: April, Angie. Can you tell that we're not there? Angie uses Tailwind, which is a service that is approved by Pinterest. She ultimately wants more control over what's going out. Tailwind allows you to bulk schedule, and she schedules an entire month of content in just a couple of hours. Tribes & board lists are the most powerful features of Tailwind. Tribes allow you to have a "pinning party" with people that have similar content to yours. It allows you to create a group of like-minded sellers share your pins with them, then pin their pins that they've shared. Board lists let you make lists of boards to pin to, and then you can bulk add the same pin to go to each board at a specific time interval. [caption id="attachment_786" align="aligncenter" width="1010"]

Episode 2: Why aren't my promoted pins running? Mar 30, 2018

Are Conferences Worth It? Mar 19, 2018

Let's talk about the Teachers Pay Teachers conference & Social Media Marketing World! Are conferences worth it? Two weeks after attending Social Media Marketing World, Angie and I are discussing our experience. In this episode, we also talk about how to get the most value out of conferences, and why you should attend the Teachers Pay Teachers conference. Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. You don’t have to purchase them through our links, but if you do, it’s much appreciated! Social Media Marketing World It was my second time, and Angie's first, attending SMMW 2018. Our conclusion was that it's a good conference to attend if you are already at the point in your business where you are running ads and utilizing a website and/or mailing list. The conference gave us motivation to refine what we were already doing in our businesses. Angie flew across country for this conference. With conference ticket, flight, and hotel, it was pricey. She concluded that it was a lot of money to spend for just one conference. I drove to the conference, and thought it was worth the money just to attend in order to network with other TpT sellers and get motivated to refine the systems she already has in place. Her favorite session was put on by Leslie Samuel, who has a great podcast on Blogging. The price averages around $900 for the conference tickets, but you can save money by buying it early. Another good option if you don't want to pay for travel expenses is the virtual ticket. With the virtual ticket, you get every session recorded to watch whenever you want. Go here to get the details. Teachers Pay Teachers Conference The main takeaway from this conversation was that you should do whatever it takes to attend this annual conference. It's very motivating, and you will learn things specific to selling on Teachers Pay Teachers. Even if the sessions aren't what you're looking for, collaboration with other sellers during this conference is highly valuable. The 2018 conference is in Nashville, TN at the Opryland. Angie suggests finding a cheaper hotel to stay at if you're attending on a budget. We both agreed that it's a nice convenience to stay where the conference is taking place, but the venue is on the pricier side. Click here for more TpT conference information. Make sure to join our Teacher Seller Facebook group!

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