The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
5 Things Keeping You from Making Money in Your TpT Business
Embark on your journey to creating a successful Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) business with me, Lauren Fulton, as I uncover five pivotal mistakes that most teacher entrepreneurs make. Many get lost in the weeds of perfect logos and branding, thinking it's the key to success. Through my personal experiences, I’ve learned what truly counts is taking action, not perfection. By focusing on producing quality resources, rather than being stuck on the minor details, you can propel your business forward and witness growth like never before.
Finding the balance between work and family can feel like juggling a dozen tasks at once. I’ve been there, and in this episode, I share how to set up a productive work schedule that aligns with your business goals and family commitments. It's about creating a structured routine and a non-negotiable work calendar that ensures you spend time on tasks that actually move the needle. By addressing habits that may seem productive but ultimately don't contribute to your revenue, you can gain clarity and set realistic expectations for both work and family time.
Thinking about diving into the world of preschool resources on TPT? Before you take the plunge, learn how effective market research can unveil profitable niches. By examining product reviews, search results, and market saturation, you can strategically align your products with what's already successful, while also identifying new opportunities. Remember, mastering the basics before scaling is crucial for a smooth transition and sustained growth. Check out my YouTube channel for step-by-step guides and subscribe for more tips on managing business growth, mastering batching techniques, and starting a second TPT store.
YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/@LaurenFulton
Welcome to the Rebranded Teacher Podcast. My name is Lauren Fulton. I'm a full-time teacher, author and seller on Teachers, Pay Teachers, and I help other teacher entrepreneurs grow their TPT businesses in a way that's purposeful and sustainable. So if you're looking for actionable, step-by-step ways to grow your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Today we are talking about five things that are keeping you from making money in your TPT business. So if you've been selling on Teachers, Pay Teachers for a while, or even if you're just getting started and you want to avoid the pitfalls, I'm going to be sharing with you five mistakes that a lot of sellers make that are keeping them from being able to scale their business and make the money that they hope to make.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times incredible teachers will start creating resources. They'll put them up on TPT and they'll start listening a lot of times to all the gurus. They'll consume all the content. They're here on my channel, they're on other channels, they're listening to podcasts. They're doing all the things right, but they continue to look at that bottom line each month and they're like wait a second, how come I'm only making like $50 a month? How come I'm putting 20 hours into my business and I'm not even getting $20 back right? And they start to look at that time investment. They start to look at the money that they're investing. They start to look at the whole big picture and they're like I have to be doing something wrong. Or maybe they're on the flip side of that. Maybe you are listening and you're like well, I'm making, you know, $500 a month. I just can't seem to scale. I can't seem to get to where I want to be.
Speaker 2:I hear all of these incredible success stories about people like you, lauren, who are making thousands of dollars a month on Teachers, pay Teachers and have been doing it for years. When is this going to happen for me? What am I missing? That's what we're talking about today. So, number one, I'm gonna start you off here and we're gonna get into some more specifics, little less basic things here in just a minute. But a lot of the times the problems that you're experiencing, good news is they're basic. Okay, a lot of the times the issues that you're running into, the reason why you're not able to scale your business, is not some complex secret ingredient that you're missing. It's that you're on the hunt looking for a secret ingredient when really you need to take a look at your flour, sugar, milk and eggs. Right, you need to take a look at some of those staple items. So the very first thing, the very first staple item you need to take a look at is are you stagnant in your TPT business? First staple item you need to take a look at is are you stagnant in your TPT business? Are you unable to make the money and get your business where you want it to be because you're not getting started?
Speaker 2:So many people make this mistake of not getting started because they're paralyzed by things that do not matter. Like have I picked the right logo? I had a conversation with somebody about that the other day. Like did I pick the right brand name? Should I go ahead and continue to make resources and put them up on TPT. I feel like I'm holding myself back because I'm a little bit unsure about my store name and I don't want to have to go back and redo all of the branding. Those things don't matter. I mean, I'm not going to say they don't matter entirely. They're still important, but they're not going to be the thing that keeps you from making money and they're not going to be the thing that catapults your business.
Speaker 2:Before I ever had branding, before I ever had branding colors, before I ever had a professional logo, or at least a semi-professional logo, in my TPT business, I had already left the classroom because I was out earning my teaching salary. I mean, that's just the truth. So a lot of times those logos don't matter. And I actually even picked a picture of myself. It was blurry, that was my logo. I had one blurry logo that was just a picture of myself, nothing else, just a picture of me. That was it, no branding colors. I did have somewhat consistent covers and things like that, but I didn't even have fonts that I stuck with on a regular basis. Like there was a lot of stuff that was missing in terms of branding for my business and as for my store name. My store name was my name. It wasn't anything that was going to make or break my store.
Speaker 2:Okay, now, I'm not saying that you need to go with your store name, or I'm not saying that you need to go with your name for your store name. I'm not saying that you don't need to do any branding colors or to set on branding. Not any of that is what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that those things don't matter nearly as much as actually moving forward. Okay, so if you find yourself paralyzed by some of those things that people say, like, oh, don't start your email marketing, don't start your email marketing journey until you're ready to start writing emails. Don't start your email marketing journey until you know for sure what platform you're going to be on, because you don't want to have to switch or better, decide on all your branding colors right now, because if you don't, it's going to be this massive headache to go back and redo.
Speaker 2:Well, guess what? Let me tell you something Chances are, even if you spend thousands of dollars on professional branding that you love now, five years from now, it's not going to be relevant. You're not going to love it and you're going to want to redo it. Okay. Now you might stick with it forever. You might do that, but there's a good chance that you're not going to. But here's the bigger thing A headache when you're making $5,000 a month is a much smaller headache than when you're making $5 a month. Okay, so worry about some of those bigger problems, some of those bigger things that are keeping you paralyzed. Worry about them when you're making a little bit more money. Okay, and that goes for some of these basic things that I've talked about here, like branding, or actually starting that Instagram account, or actually getting started with email marketing. It goes for some of those basic things.
Speaker 2:If you have something in your business that is keeping you from being able to do what you need to do, to actually move forward, to do the things that you need to get done, then chances are that hurdle is really not that important. Like, if it's keeping you from doing the things that make you money, then it's not a very relevant hurdle. Next thing is you're not prioritizing your work time. Like, if it's keeping you from doing the things that make you money, then it's not a very relevant hurdle. Next thing is you're not prioritizing your work time and I know this is a really hard one, you guys and this is hard for all of us Like. This is hard if you're still in the classroom. This is hard if you're out of the classroom. You've got kids at home.
Speaker 2:No matter where you're at in your journey, prioritizing work time is tough and the reality of the situation is a lot of us chose this business because of the flexibility and wanting passive income, like the idea of being able to make money while you're putting your kids to bed, or the idea of being able to go on vacation or enjoy your holidays or things like that, while still earning passive income, really appeals to us because we have busy lifestyles. But on the flip side of that coin, you actually do have to prioritize work time. You can't just fly by the seat of your pants in terms of when you're going to be working, how much you're going to be working, how often you're going to be working, and expect that you're going to be able to build a legitimate business. For some people does it happen? Yes, but you know, those are what I would say. Like the Steve Jobs and the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, those are kind of the exception of the rule.
Speaker 2:The rest of us, we have to get up, we have to have a routine and we have to prioritize our work time. So what does that look like practically, prioritizing your work time? Practically, that means sitting down, looking at your schedule and saying when am I going to work and how often am I going to work and what time of day am I going to work on those days? It's going to look like sitting down with your spouse, maybe sitting down with your kids if they're old enough, and having conversations like I need to get work done. This is what our family calendar looks like. These are some changes that are going to have to be made. Maybe dad's going to be picking you up from school on these days. Maybe mom is going to be taking you to soccer practice on Saturdays, whatever. It is kind of rearranging the schedule to make sure that you're getting the time that you need in order to work on your business.
Speaker 2:Now don't hear me saying that you need to be dedicating 20, 40 hours a week to your business. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that you determine how many hours you're going to work, based on what your goals are, and then from there you figure out how is that going to fit into your schedule and develop that routine. And I can't stress this enough because, again, I know a lot of us like to fly by the seat of our pants and we like to have some of the flexibility that comes with owning our own business and having a side hustle. We like some of that flexibility. But one of the biggest favors that you can do for yourself and especially if you have a family with littles especially is you can develop a non-negotiable work calendar. That way your entire family knows what to expect of you. That way you know what your expectations are for yourself and those things don't change.
Speaker 2:So, for example, my husband and I we recently reworked our work calendar, work schedule. We both are able to be really flexible. But he works one-on-one with clients and he has to be able to take phone calls during the middle of the day and things like that. So he has to have a little bit more of a traditional work schedule than I do. But we sat down and we reworked this recently and decided that from 4 to 6 pm, that was going to be my time slot, where he's taking over dad duties and he's taking over all of the responsibilities. He's cooking dinner, he's figuring all of that stuff out between 4 and 6 pm because my kids usually go down for a nap around three o'clock. So that gives me three hours at least to work on my business every single day. I also have another hour during the day where my youngest is taking a nap and my older daughter is able to sit with me and craft next to me as I'm answering emails and kind of catching up on some of the basic stuff.
Speaker 2:And then we also set aside Saturday to be a full day for me to be able to get in a lot of work and do a lot of batching and things like that. And so by setting that expectation, we were able to sit our kids down which one of them is a baby, so she doesn't really know but we're able to sit our kids down and say okay, on Saturdays mom is not going to be able to play with you, mom is not going to be able, which sounds really sad, but I'm with them all week. So like, don't feel sorry for me, but you know what I mean. It's like mom's not going to be your go-to person. You and dad are going to do A, b, c and D. Y'all are going to be able to do all these fun things and it kind of just sets that expectation and creates that routine so that, especially again if you've got littles, but even if you've got teenagers, they know every single Monday, from 6 to 9 pm, mom's locked inside of her office. She is not to be disturbed. If I need something I go to dad, versus having to do the whole call out like, all right, everybody, I have two hours that I need to get some stuff done on my business. So you guys go figure things out. I'm going to be in here and kind of flying by the seat of your pants. That way it really works a whole lot better if you've got a family to really make sure that that's all scheduled out. So, prioritizing your work time by creating a schedule, all right.
Speaker 2:Number three let's move on. You're spending a lot of time and money on things that don't bring in revenue but you probably think that they will. So, for example, you're spending a lot of time picking out that clip art, spending a lot of time shopping those TPT sale to make sure you have all the fonts and all the things that you need. You're spending money on memberships or things of that nature, and by memberships I mean things like maybe template memberships or stock photos or whatever, and trying to consume a whole bunch of content via podcasts, youtube, all of that stuff, rather than actually working on your business and working on the things that bring in revenue.
Speaker 2:By nature, we get a dopamine hit when we're able to check something off our list, when we're able to feel like we make progress. That's how come so many of us carry around our little notepad and we have our to-do list of items that we're supposed to do that day. And when we complete a task that's not on the notepad, like you know, ooh, I got three glasses of water in. I'm going to start tracking my water today. Let me make little water drops and do six cups. Ooh, I'm halfway there. Like we start adding things to our list that were never on our list to begin with, just so that we can check them off and get that quick little dopamine hit, right. And we do the same thing in our business. We listen to that business podcast on the way home so we can check that business box. I worked on my business today. I got some really great ideas for my business today.
Speaker 2:We read that book, we consume that content, we show up to that meeting. We do those things that are really simple, quick and easy wins, but really all we're doing is we're filling our mind with things that a lot of times. But really what we're doing if you're finding yourself, but if you're doing this on a regular basis and you're doing this a lot what you're actually doing is you're just putting a lot in without ever putting any of it into action. So you're just stuffing your mind full of a bunch of information. By the time you actually sit down to implement any of it, you're going to forget half of it and the rest of it's just going to be a jumbled message you've got to sort through. And that's why you sit down and you feel like, oh my gosh, where do I start? Because there's so much to do. It's because you've been consuming so much content and been listening to so many different people telling you all the things that you need to be doing that by the time you sit down to actually work, you're like where do I even start?
Speaker 2:So if you feel like you're spending a lot of time in your business learning, you feel like you're paying for a bunch of different memberships, a bunch of different subscriptions, but you're not seeing that revenue come back in. You need to really sit back and kind of take a look and say, okay, now wait a second. What do I really need to be doing here? And these things that I'm paying for, the content that I'm consuming, all the stuff that I'm doing is it really helping me to accomplish these one to three items that I need to be doing in my business in order to bring in revenue? Are these things actually helping me search engine optimize my resources? Is this content actually giving me an effective marketing strategy? Is it making me better at marketing, or do I really just need to take the time to sit down and do the thing right? If that's the case, quit filling your head with all of the things and actually just sit down and spend the time to work on the things that are going to bring in revenue in your business.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about number four. This is a really big one and I've got a treat for you guys. Today. You're neglecting your market research, and somebody commented on one of my recent videos and said everybody talks about doing market research, but no one really does a deep dive in a video to show us how to do market research. Would love to see that. And then I got like two more replies saying yes, I need this, I would love this too, okay. So I'm going to show you what I'm talking about here and if you're listening via podcast, I'm going to try to explain what I'm doing. But you can go check out the YouTube channel and these are all posted on YouTube as well and so I'm going to show you, I'm going to share my screen and I'm going to show you this comment section.
Speaker 2:What's really interesting is just underneath that somebody else commented and said thank you, I'm thinking of starting another store. Try making unicorn lessons. So in this video it was all about five things I've learned starting a new TPT business and I was talking about this new TPT business for preschoolers or making preschool resources, and so this person said try making unicorn lessons. The little ones love them. Okay. So here's the thing If I'm not doing market research, then immediately I see that like unicorn lessons. Great, I have a niece that loves unicorns. This person's right.
Speaker 2:Why didn't I think about unicorns? I'm immediately going to go out and make some unicorn resources and I'm going to buy the clip art. I'm going to do all the things right, but when I'm doing market research, what I'm doing is I'm going to teachers, pay teachers and I'm actually looking to see are unicorn lessons selling in preschool? Are people actually actively searching for them? And, if so, is the market oversaturated? Like can I actually? Is there a place in the market for the resources that I create? So right now I'm creating a very specific product line. I do not wanna deviate from that product line. My audience is telling me that they like that product line, so I wanna stick with it.
Speaker 2:But I wanna see, hmm, can I make a unicorn version of my daily work? Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to start by typing into TPT something and you might hear me typing If you're listening via podcast. You might hear me typing here. I'm going to type in unicorn preschool, just really broad, okay. And when I type in unicorn preschool, like not anything shows up in the suggestion box on TPT, which is not a bad thing. When I type in unicorn preschool, like not anything shows up in the suggestion box on TPT, which is not a bad thing. When I type unicorn in specifically, I get suggestions like unicorn coloring pages, thelma the unicorn, things like that. Okay, so I don't make unicorn coloring pages. That's not relevant to me right now. So I'm just going to go ahead and type in unicorn preschool and I get 560 results.
Speaker 2:The very top result has 37 reviews and sells for $7.50. If I do a quick math on that, I go $7.50 minus the 20% that TPT is going to take and then that makes me $6. If I math this out, there are 37 reviews. I would say roughly 10% of people who purchase a product leave a review. So that means there's about 370 purchasers. Just literally throwing that number out, there could be off, but it's a good place to start. So six times 370. I'm looking at $2,220.
Speaker 2:Now for some people, if you're first starting off, you go okay, $2,220. That is my maximum earning potential for that keyword. That is that my maximum earning potential for that keyword. That is that keyword's maximum earning potential according to what's currently on the market. So what that means is the absolute most at this point in time that I can expect to get out of creating a unicorn resource. And this is over a period of time, right, not like I'm gonna make $2,200 this year, but $2,200 in the next few years. The maximum earning potential for that keyword is about $2,200 according to market research right now. So what's interesting about that is that that's great.
Speaker 2:Fine, like that sounds wonderful to me, but of course, initially I'm not going to be number one. Would I like to eventually be number one? Yeah, but it's gonna be an uphill battle. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna scroll down. I'm gonna look at these different unicorn worksheets. I'm looking at what's selling and I'm seeing okay, this is a preschool activities binder, that's number one. And then there's another busy binder and then there's some worksheets that seem to be selling pretty well, which is great, and so I can see that, based on what's selling, if I were to create my daily pages with a unicorn theme, it would be kind of like right in line with that. Not that it's the same product at all. It's not the same product at all. I'm not given any kind of an indication that this is going to be something completely different from what I'm selling that buyers would not be interested in.
Speaker 2:Okay, as I scroll a little bit further down the page, I see that there's a resource that does not have any reviews. I see a free resource, which is always a good indicator. Tpt usually doesn't put a free product on the first page unless there aren't a lot of great options or the competition isn't very stiff. And then as I get about a third of the way down the page, I start to run into all kinds of resources that don't have any reviews. So that means that there is a good chance that I could make it on the first page of search results with a brand new product for the search term unicorn preschool, which is a really broad keyword, and there is some good movement within the top few products enough good movement to tell me that there's a chance that I could bring in some sales organically through TPT traffic. So what that means is yes, I think that I'm going to go ahead and create those unicorn preschool worksheets. It's not like such great demand I'm not seeing. Like I'm seeing, in fact, two of the three top sellers are from the same seller and the top three resources are from big sellers. So that means that they're probably driving traffic and things like that to get some of those sales. But in general, I do feel like there could be a place in the market for me and that's where I'm doing that market research.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I'm looking at while I'm here is I'm going ahead and I'm making note of what do the unicorns look like? What do the covers look like? And I can see that lots of rainbow colors seem to be popular, and I'm kind of noticing that and just kind of making a note of that. I'm going to want this to be a very colorful resource and I'm going to want to make sure I'm utilizing some good color on the cover. While I'm also here, I can take a look at these top sellers and determine do I need to take photos or can I use mock-up images? Can I just use the PNG images of the resource and I'm able to kind of go ahead and determine those things without having to come back and do that research later on. Okay, so basically that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about market research.
Speaker 2:Instead of just getting a wild hair and being like, okay, I'm going to make unicorn resources, I actually need to take the time to go and look and see is that going to sell? And I can do this with other themes too. In preschool, it's really easy to just talk about themes, right? So I can do this for other themes or for other topics as well, in other niches. This might be looking up a certain topic for a set of notes that you want to create, or a certain topic for an activity that you want to create, or an escape room that you want to create and you want to look and see is there a place for me with this topic under escape room? If I search, you know pronouns escape room am I going to be able to rank on the first page? Is it too competitive? Is anyone even looking for this? So I kind of get a good idea of what my maximum earning potential would be for that product over the product's lifetime just by kind of doing that market research and kind of utilizing that market research.
Speaker 2:Number five, last one, you're trying to scale before mastering the basics and I see this more as time goes on. I think used to everyone was like you just need to master the basics. If you just focus on the basics, your business is going to take off. Your business is going to work and I still believe that that's true. If you really take the time to focus on your basic things like search engine optimization, creating high quality covers and previews, creating high quality resources, standing out in saturated markets if you really focus on those things, I really do believe that you can make a good living off of selling resources on TPT by just mastering those basics.
Speaker 2:But a lot of times people really try to scale. They try to start hiring out, like hiring VAs. They sort of try to scale before mastering those basics. And this is not to discourage anyone or to make you feel like you made the wrong decision in your business or that you're not ready for it or whatever, because everyone's business is different. And while some people I might tell them, yeah, like hire a VA when you first start, let somebody else create your products, like for another person I might say, no, I think you need to take a little time to really master this before trying to move on to something else. And so when we're talking about scaling before mastering the basics, we're talking about really trying to branch out or behave like a big business before you are a big business. And I'm gonna give you a real life example of this.
Speaker 2:I went a while back to go get my hair done and I was trying out a new hairdresser who did a phenomenal job, by the way and I went there and this hairdresser had just opened up a brand new salon. They were young, they're doing everything for the first time, and so they had been working and like renting a booth at another salon and then now all of a sudden they've got this major amount of overhead in that they have a physical building that they're renting out. They have all of the initial cost of starting up a business, like putting in sinks and doing all of the things that you have to do. But they were the only person working there and they were the only person doing hair, which is great. That's fine, like everybody starts somewhere.
Speaker 2:But I noticed, as I'm there and I'm the only client there I was the only client there the entire time I noticed that she had an assistant, someone to wash my hair, someone to blow dry my hair, and while the assistant was washing my hair and blow drying my hair, the hairstylist or the hairdresser was sitting down on the couch on her phone, just kind of relaxing, like doing her thing. And I thought, okay, I know how much I'm paying for getting my haircut. Like this isn't an expensive sort of process. It's like haircut, blow dry kind of situation. You know, not paying a lot of money here and this cost that I'm paying her, what little profit she's going to be making on this. She's going to have to take a big chunk of that and it's going to go to her assistant and she's not doing anything revenue generating.
Speaker 2:At this moment, like at this moment, she's sitting down on her couch relaxing and paying someone to wash my hair and blow dry my hair, and there's a time and place for that. There's a time and place in your business where you're going to get to a point where you are going to say, okay, I want to be with my kids on Saturdays. I don't want to be working on Saturdays, I want somebody else doing those things for me so that I can sit back and relax. But if you try to scale that too fast, you're going to end up putting a lot of pressure and stress on yourself because you're going to be putting money out that you actually need in order to grow your business and do some of those revenue generating things. So in the very beginning stages of your business, you really need to be the person who's mastering those basics. You really need to be the person who's in the shampoo bowl washing your client's hair. You really need to be the person that is doing the blow dry rather than having somebody do that for you until you get to the point where you actually can afford that and you're not just throwing money at a problem.
Speaker 2:Okay, now, I say all of that and I'm not criticizing how that woman was running her business. She knows more about her business than I do. But I thought it was really interesting at the time because when I saw that, I was like I know a lot of people in my industry who are doing this prematurely. Like that woman knows her bottom line. But I talk to people all the time who look at their bottom line. They're like okay, I'm making $300 a month in profits. If I take that $300 a month in profits and I spend it on something else, then it's going to bring back even more money. And I'm like that's not necessarily how it works. In fact, a lot of times it's not how it works at all.
Speaker 2:You spend $300 and you get a little bit more time in your day, but you're not spending $300 necessarily to make $600. Does that make sense? All right? So trying to scale before mastering the basics? If you are scaling by investing money or investing time in something else, and by doing so it is putting more stress and pressure on you because it's taking you away from the things that you need to be doing or it's affecting your bottom line to the point where it's stressing you out. Take a step back and realize that you don't have to scale at the same rate that you see other people scaling, and everyone's financial situation is different and a lot of people have that $300 of profit that they're making a month. They have that to be able to reinvest. They don't need that in order for their family to live or to survive, and so they're able to afford that and to do that. Okay, so just remember that you don't have to be scaling right away. You can take your time and you can build things slow and really focus on mastering those basics for yourself. That way, when you do hire someone out, or when you do get somebody to help you, or when you do move on to that next part of your business, whether it's creating a course or offering a membership or whatever. It is the original business that you have, all of those basics that you learned. You're going to get to apply them to the next business and you're not still trying to learn how to master email marketing, for example, when you're moving on to another business.
Speaker 2:All right, thanks so much for being here on the podcast. You guys, if you want to see that step-by-step walkthrough of conducting market research, make sure and go check out the YouTube channel. I put all of these podcasts on YouTube so you can watch from there at any time. And, while you're there, go ahead and subscribe to the channel and give it a like. If you enjoyed this content, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast too, if you're not already and that you're listening, tuning in every week. We've got a lot of really great episodes coming up, including how to grow your business when you're time poor, when you don't have a lot of time, beginner's guide to batching or the overworked seller's guide to batching, and even a little special episode for those of you who are thinking about starting a second TPT store and why you might want to.