The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
4 TpT Seller Tips for Growth in the New Year
Unlock the secrets to setting strategic goals for your Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) business! Ever wondered if starting with a blank slate is really the best way to boost your business? On this episode of the Rebranded Teacher Podcast, I'll show you how to harness the power of your existing processes and data to achieve unprecedented growth. We'll explore how analyzing what you already have in place can be far more effective than a complete overhaul, allowing you to build on your successes and strategically plan for a more profitable year. Get ready to redefine your approach to goal setting by focusing on measurable objectives that you control, steering clear of those unattainable income targets that only lead to frustration.
Join me, Lauren Fulton, as I guide you through the art of optimizing current resources and strategies. Unearth inconsistencies in your operations and make informed decisions about what activities to prioritize or let go. Whether it's sporadic marketing efforts or inconsistent product creation, I’ll provide actionable advice on setting goals that are both achievable and impactful. Plus, stay tuned for exciting announcements about upcoming episodes and the TPT Profit Plan Workshop happening on December 30th. Subscribe and be part of a community dedicated to growing your TPT business with purpose and sustainability.
The TpT Profit Plan: Build The Business of Your Dreams in 2025:
https://rebrandedteacher.kartra.com/page/hun253
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 1:If you've been working on your TPT store over the last year or several years, but you're feeling a little discouraged by where you are versus where you hope to be in your journey by now, then today's video is for you. I'm going to be talking to you about some important things that you need to keep in mind when you're planning out your year and the goals for your business in this coming year. So if you want this coming year to be the most profitable year in your TPT business, then stay tuned, because we're going to be talking about some things that you need to do in order to set practical, strategic, profitable goals in the coming year. Okay, so let's just dive in. One of the biggest mistakes that I think business owners in general make whenever you're starting to goal set for the coming year is that you just kind of sit down, or at least this is what I did or used to do is I'd kind of sit down with a blank piece of paper maybe a planner, maybe a little cute little notebook or even just a white piece of paper, and I would have my beautiful pens. I'd be all ready to start writing down what my goals for the coming year were, and it was kind of like starting from a blank slate. And while I'm not going to say that there's never a time to sit down in your business and start from a blank slate, I'm going to say that the vast majority of time, that is not a good idea.
Speaker 1:If you are a blank slate goal setter, then you are not going to get the most out of not only your goal setting time but out of your business, because blank slate goal setting is for people who are at rock bottom and they plan on scrapping everything that they've ever done and starting over. This works for some things really well, like if I have a painting that I've been working on for a really long time and I can't seem to get it finished, then yeah, wiping the slate clean and starting over, painting over that canvas with a fresh coat of white, is a really great idea. But if I'm a person and I want to start with having a healthier me in the coming year. Blank slate goal setting is not going to work right, because I need to take account of the things that are not going well for me currently. And the things that are going well for me currently, because, no matter how far away I am from where I want to be, there are still some things that I'm doing right, whether consciously or subconsciously, and I need to take notice of those things that I'm doing well so that I can get the most out of my journey. And it's the same way with my TPT business. Unless you can actually wipe the slate clean, like you want to start over with a fresh, brand new store, which is probably like zero of you listening right now, then you really don't need to start with this blank slate method.
Speaker 1:The first thing that you need to do is take a really good, hard look at your data and your current processes. So what are you currently doing in your business? What is your current order of operations Like? Are you creating products? Are you focusing on product creation? Are you focusing on marketing? Are you doing anything at all?
Speaker 1:Maybe you're doing nothing, and that's fine too, but just take inventory of what you've currently been doing and then take a look at the data to tell whether or not it's actually working for you. Are the new products that you're creating bringing in revenue? Are the new products that you're creating or are your current listings actually bringing in traffic? Is the marketing that you're doing effective? Or maybe it's semi-effective but could be more effective if you were more consistent? You know all that kind of stuff right of what all have I done? What all am I currently doing? What's working, what's not working? Even if it's just working a tiny bit, even if you just have a few resources that are getting a few views a month, that's still something that is somewhat working for you, right? So we need to really sit down and take stock, take inventory of where we are, and then from there we can decide okay, now where do I need to go to get to the next level? So if I'm making $50 a month right now, where is that $50 a month coming from? Is it coming from traffic within TPT? Is it coming from outside marketing? Is it coming from one or two products in my store? If so, I really just need to kind of step back and take inventory and say, okay, what is working so that I can try to replicate that success in 2025?
Speaker 1:Because you're not starting from a blank slate. If you have a TPT store, you have something, and maybe you have products in your store that aren't driving traffic, they aren't selling, but you know that they're good, high quality products. You still have a starting point. You still have good, high quality products that just need to get in front of the eyes of buyers, right, or maybe need some tweaks to their product descriptions or to their listings in order to convert better with the traffic that they are getting. But you are not starting from ground zero, so do not start with a blank piece of paper for setting your goals. You really need to pull that data out. You really need to take inventory of what you're doing, write it all down and then move on from there.
Speaker 1:Number two you need to be making a plan for inconsistencies in your business. From that list of everything that you're doing, you need to start taking note of what are the things that I'm doing that I'm really inconsistent with. Maybe I'm making really high quality products, but I'm really inconsistent with them. Maybe I'm making a product here, a product over there, and the products that I'm creating have nothing to do with each other. They're just random things that I create whenever I get inspired. That would be inconsistent product creation. It's not that it's a bad thing, but if channeled, it could produce more revenue for your business. So we really need to take inventory of what are the areas of my business where I am behaving or operating inconsistently, and I need to make a plan for those inconsistencies. I either need to number one stop doing them Now for things like product creation, I wouldn't necessarily say that that's going to be a good strategy, for most people is to just stop product creation or just stop search engine optimizing your resources.
Speaker 1:That's really not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about are some of the things that you might be doing, like inconsistently marketing on Instagram right. Inconsistently creating TikTok videos. Inconsistently recording podcasts. Inconsistently email marketing. Inconsistently writing those blog posts Some of the things. If you're doing them inconsistently, you really need to make a plan. Either am I going to do them consistently so that they can actually work, or am I going to stop doing them all together because they're not working and I don't want to stress myself out. I want to focus on things that are working already. This is where not starting with a blank slate for creating your business goals and your plans is really going to work in your favor. Because if I have a list of all the things that I'm doing and I'm taking inventory of what's working, then I might be able to clearly see. You know, what that Instagram marketing that I've been hit or miss on that I've been beating myself up over because I haven't been doing it as well as I wanted to do. I can get rid of that, because the vast majority of my traffic is coming from within TPT and if I wanna focus on product creation in the next year, then that's what I can do. Or I want to focus on search engine optimization in the new year. I can do that and I don't have to force myself to continue to show up inconsistently and beat myself up in the areas where I'm just not meeting my goals.
Speaker 1:Number three I want you to get rid of immeasurable goals and goals that are outside of your control. By get rid of them, I mean I want you to get them out of your head. Stop focusing on them. If you want to feel out of control in your business, then you're going to set goals like I want to make $50,000 next year. I want to 3x my traffic next year. I want to have 20,000 people on my email list next year. If you want to feel out of control in your business, those are the kind of goals that you're going to set as your primary goals. Now, those are fun goals. Those are the kind of things that we write down and we go oh, that would be amazing, that would make me feel so good, this would be great. But those are goals that we don't have control over. Okay, they are measurable right, we can measure them, but we don't have any control over them.
Speaker 1:If I wanna feel like I'm trying to build my business blind, right, like walking around just trying to figure out where I am, where I'm going and what I'm doing, then I'm gonna set immeasurable goals. Goals like I wanna spend more time working on my business. Goals like I wanna have less stress in my business. Goals like I want things to be more streamlined in my business right, these are things that I can't measure. These are things that I cannot sit down and look okay, was I successful in this? Maybe you were more streamlined, maybe you were less stressed, but did you feel it right? Those are things that I can't measure.
Speaker 1:So if you wanna feel out of control and if you wanna feel like you're going at it blind, then you're gonna set immeasurable goals that are outside of your control. Instead, what I really need to do is I need to take a look at what are some things that are inside of my control that I can measure to determine success. So, if I wanna 3X my traffic in the coming year, then I, instead of saying I wanna 3X my traffic, I need to say you know what? I'm gonna create X number of new resources based on my data that should eventually get me to my traffic goals, but I'm going to focus on creating new resources. Or I want to search engine, optimize this number of resources, or I want to send out X number of emails in the next year. Instead of working towards that number that's outside of my control, I'm going to set measurable goals that are within my control. I can create new products, I can search engine, optimize my resources and I can reach those goals. They're within my control and I know exactly what I'm doing. So we want measurable, achievable goals that I can, that don't rely on outside factors that are out of my control.
Speaker 1:Okay, because I want to be in control of my business. I want to feel in control of my business and I want to make sure that my path to success is very clear, which let's talk about that. Number four you need a path to success, you need a plan for your year and if you're listening and you're going well, those are things I want to do. Lauren, I do want to 3X my traffic. I do want to make $50,000 next year. Those are my overall goals, like those are my far-reaching goals, but I do feel like I'm doing this blind. Like how do I know? Do I focus on product creation? How do I know if I focus on search engine optimization? How do I know what to focus on to get to those big goals that you're telling me I don't need to focus on? Well, I'm going to help you with that.
Speaker 1:We have a workshop this year. In fact, this is year number. Let's see, we did in 2021, 22, 23, 24, and we're going to do it again in 2025. So this is year five of a goal setting workshop that we're going to be doing for TPT sellers, and this is the first year that we're going to meet on Zoom. We're going to meet together. It's going to be close. It's going to be intimate, it's going to be personal. We're going to get into your business and we're going to create a success plan for you.
Speaker 1:So, if you have been feeling like I know where I want my business to be and I felt like I would be so much further than I am right now, we're going to figure that out for you. I'm going to walk you through a success path and how you can create a plan for your business that is going to get you where you want to be. You don't need to try to fly blind in 2025. There's no more of that. There's no need for it. Okay, I got you. We're going to do it together. It's called the TBT Profit Plan Build the business of your dreams in 2025. That's exactly what we're going to do and it's 10 bucks. You guys, you cannot beat that with a stick, as they say here in the South. You can't beat it with a stick.
Speaker 1:You'll find the link down inside of the description to join us for that workshop. We're going to have a lot of fun. It comes with a workbook to help you plan out your success and I'm going to give you a roadmap the three things that you should be focusing on inside of your business and how you can customize it for your personal, individual goals and business needs to get to where you want to be in 2025, you do not want to miss it. If you have felt like every single year, I'm setting these goals, I'm making a plan and then I get to the end of the year and I'm still not where I want to be. Tpt Profit Plan Workshop is for you. You want to join us for that workshop? Link inside of the description. We're going to meet on December 30th. There are replays, though. So, if you can, this year 2024. Find the link down inside of the description and come join us for that.
Speaker 1:And don't do what I do and say, oh, I'm going to do that tomorrow, I'm going to sign up for that, or I'm going to sign up for that when I get home. Make sure that you actually write this down and you follow through. So, if you're watching on YouTube right now, stop what you're doing as long as you're not driving. Stop what you're doing. Go, click on the link in the description. Go ahead. Stop what you're doing as long as you're not driving. Stop what you're doing. Go, click on the link in the description. Go ahead and get signed up. We'll send you all the reminders so you don't forget.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, this makes an excellent stocking stuffer too. A lot of people will ask their in-laws or ask their parents or their spouse or whatever, to join RTA for their Christmas present. And this is something that you can do for your Christmas gift. Say like, hey, honey, you know that stocking that you never stuff. I got you a little stocking stuffer idea $10, buy me a ticket to this workshop or get yourself a little stocking stuffer. Go ahead and get that right now. And if you're listening on podcast, then make sure if you're driving, don't do anything other than drive and watch the road, but make sure when you get home, when you get to your destination, go ahead and stop. Click the link down in that description so that you don't miss it.
Speaker 1:Every single year, someone misses the workshop and they send me an email. They're like oh my gosh, I missed it, but not, it's not going to be you, not this year, because you're going to be planning the business of your dreams for 2025. And I'm going to see you there. Thanks so much for being here. You guys, if you're new to the podcast, make sure you're subscribed so that you don't miss any of the upcoming episodes.
Speaker 1:We've got so many great episodes coming up and you know what? We're not taking a break for a long time. We've got a lot in the queue for you, guys. If you're a flyby listener, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you don't miss an episode. Check back in here. Every single week I put on a new episode. I try to keep the advice short, simple and to the point so that you can immediately implement it inside of your business. Thanks so much for being here, you guys. I'm going to see you right back here next week and I'm going to see you December 30th inside the TPT Profit Plan Workshop. Bye, you guys.