The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
Five Smart Trades to Boost Your TPT Business Without Spending a Dime
Tired of feeling like you need a marketing budget to grow your TPT business? This episode flips that notion on its head with five genius strategies for trading value instead of spending money.
Lauren challenges the limiting belief that many teacher-entrepreneurs hold: "I can't collaborate until I have something to bring to the table." As she points out, you already have valuable assets other sellers want—even if it's not a large audience. Through the inspiring story of a woman who bartered coupon-bought products for everything from fresh produce to home renovations, we see how creative trading can transform limited resources into remarkable results.
The strategies range from creating classroom implementation content for full-time TPT sellers (who desperately need authentic in-classroom footage) to collaborating on content series that benefit both parties. Lauren details exactly how to approach potential trading partners, what to request in exchange for your contributions, and how to ensure the arrangements are clear and mutually beneficial. The episode covers content creation trades, social media collaborations, email list swaps, blog hops for SEO benefits, and skillset exchanges that leverage each person's strengths.
What makes these strategies particularly valuable is their accessibility to sellers at any stage. Whether you have 300 followers or 30,000, these approaches can help you grow without spending a dime on advertising. Lauren's practical suggestions include how to measure results, create clear agreements, and develop professional trading relationships that benefit everyone involved. Ready to think like a savvy business owner and trade your way to greater visibility? This episode gives you the exact blueprint to make it happen.
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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. Want to grow your audience, but you are nowhere near ready to start spending money on ads? Then this episode is for you. I'm going to be sharing five strategies that help you start thinking like a savvy business owner by trading value instead of money, and we're going to be diving deep into five smart trades that you can make with other sellers to help boost your visibility, stretch your budget and build that TPT community. But before we get started, I want to address something that I hear all the time. So many TPT sellers are hesitant to make trades, to work with other TPT sellers, influencers, business owners because they're like I don't have anything to bring to the table, and if that's you, I want you to get out of that mindset right now. There is no place for that here, because basically, what you're doing when you tell yourself I can't do X until I get to Y, which is what I hear all the time, I can't be part of an email collab event to grow my email list until I get a certain number of email subscribers, or I grow my Instagram so until I get a certain number of email subscribers, or I grow my Instagram so that I actually have something to bring to the table. Like I don't have an audience to trade, or I can't ask another seller to collaborate with me or to work with me until I have a large audience, just like they do. And if we really think in terms of like trading apples for apples, like yeah, that would be true, but sometimes you've got an orange to bring to the table and that other seller, who may be bigger, more established than you, they have an apple that you want, you have an orange that they want and you can trade different kinds of fruit. Boy, that was kind of a rough analogy, but hopefully you get where I'm going with that. Let's talk about some things that you can bring to the table, even if you don't have an existing audience. And remember, keep in mind, as you're listening to some of these, I'm going to give specific examples for some of these. Like hey, if you don't have an audience, this is what this could look like. But for others you can get creative.
Speaker 1:My husband and I were just talking about this the other night, about how this limited growth mindset kind of permeates like all areas of business, and it's not just TPT sellers. There are a lot of people who are stuck in a place in their business or in their life and they want to get out of that spot. Like TPT sellers who are like I'm tired of making $40 a month. But I feel like the only way that I'm going to get out of this $40 a month rut and go on to make $400 a month or $4,000 a month is going to be with resources that I don't have. Like I can't get out of this right now. It's going to take me a really long time because first I have to do this small thing and then I have to do this, and they see this path as being can't get to where I want to be unless I do these steps to fit this mold. We don't want any of that. Okay For most people that hang up in the TPT world is like I can't collaborate with other people because I don't have an audience. They're not going to take me seriously, I don't have anything to bring to the table, and that may be true in terms of audience, but you have other things to bring to the table, and that's what we're going to talk about today. We want to make sure that you are really focused on what can I bring to the table, what do I have, and how can I take the valuable resources, assets and gifts that I have and trade them for something that's going to be valuable for me?
Speaker 1:When I was in college, I was working as a nail tech and I would give pedicures, manicures, things like that, and that's how I would pay for school. I also worked at a bakery, but for sure, like the nail tech thing, you got to meet way more interesting people, and I had this lady who came in one day. She was a stay-at-home mom. She was absolutely incredible and she bartered. That was her thing. Everything she did, she bartered for it. So she was a coupon shopper. She didn't have a lot of money. Her husband didn't make a lot of money, their budget didn't stretch very far, they were in debt and they had a bunch of kids, and she was like I want to build another room onto our house, we need another bedroom and I don't have any money.
Speaker 1:And so she started this couponing back when, like extreme couponing was like it's really big thing and what she would do is use all of these couponing skills to purchase like way more stuff than what she needed. So she would buy a bunch of like laundry detergent, dish soap, feminine products. She would purchase like all kinds of stuff. And then what she would do is she would barter with that. So she would go down to the corner, to the farmer's market stand on the corner, and she would barter with the produce person and she would say, I tell you what, like you need Tide, I've got Tide. You have tomatoes, I need tomatoes, let's make a trade. And so the big bottle of Tide that was worth, you know, 20 bucks. She was able to get $20 worth of produce for that bottle of Tide. But she was able to get, say, $15 worth of produce. So the person, the produce stand, they made a good trade and she only paid like $3 for it. So she was able to spend $3 and get $15 worth of produce. Everybody won. It was fantastic.
Speaker 1:But it didn't stop there. She bartered for everything. She bartered for her pedicures. There was a period of time where I didn't have to buy feminine products for like literally a year, because she would come in and it cost me very little to give her a pedicure right, it just cost me mostly my time and a little bit of product, and she would trade me for like boxes and boxes of feminine products. It cost her very little to purchase the feminine products. So it was great she would do the same thing and she would get massages. Her family at the time probably had a combined household income of like under 50 grand a year, but the woman lived like a queen. They ate very well, she got massages on a regular basis, she got her pedicures on a regular basis and, of course, she was able to save so much money in groceries through all of this bartering and trading that she was able to add an addition onto her home with all of this money that she saved.
Speaker 1:So what am I getting at? We've gotta think creatively. We've gotta think like that woman who's like I'm going to barter and trade my way into what I want. Like I don't have money to pay people for the services that I want or for the goods that I want, but I do have these products as couponing. I have the ability, I have the skillset, and so I'm going to trade it, I'm going to turn it into a way that I can get the resources that I want or I can get the end result that I want. And that's exactly what she did. And that's what you have to do in your business. You have to really think scrappy, and one of my favorite ways to do this is something that I don't see anyone doing, and I'm gonna tell you you need to do it.
Speaker 1:Number one is create UGC content. So UGC and I guess that's probably redundant, it's probably like saying SEO, optimization or something UGC is user generated content. People are willing to pay big bucks for content that you create. So I had somebody reach out to me like, personally, I'm not going to do this for what they offered, but they were like hey, I'll give you this free product or whatever, if you can create a reel about this product and like create some stories and whatever.
Speaker 1:I don't have a big audience, so they're not really wanting the exposure. What they're wanting is they're wanting the content for me. They don't want the exposure that I have to give them, because I don't really have much by way of exposure. I have like just under 2000 followers on Instagram. What they want is they want the content that comes from a mom, and the particular content that they were asking for was like, hey, we'll send you this backpack or something for kids and then you create content that revolves around this backpack. So when I'm creating the content, it comes from like the perspective of, like a satisfied customer or a mom. It's the kind of content that they can't create because they're. It's the kind of content they can't create because they're the owners of the company, and so it's not going to come across as genuine, as if a mom who doesn't own the company creates the content. And it's the same thing with TPT products. One of the number one insecurities that TPT sellers have, who are full-time TPT and have left the classroom, is the fact that they are no longer in the classroom. On the flip side of that, a lot of brand new TPT sellers are still in the classroom, so you have something that they want.
Speaker 1:You have the ability to create content that they want, which is their product being used in the classroom, and that doesn't necessarily mean being used with kids' faces or anything like that. This could be you prepping it out, you talking at the end of the day, making a little video saying like we used this resource today and I want to tell you a little bit about how it went. So here's how I set things up and you can show how you set it up in the classroom. This is how I set things up. Or you can show yourself like prepping it, cutting it out, you can do B roll, like whatever.
Speaker 1:And this was the kids reaction when they first walked in. They were shocked. One kid even said da, dah, dah, dah, dah, right, and you create this content that is genuine, but they can't create it and in exchange, you could barter to say, rather than paying me, what I would love is I would love if you would give a shout out to my email opt-in in your Instagram stories. Or I would love if you could shout me out in your Instagram stories, shout out my Instagram page in a way that's authentic, so you can work out a deal to where you're creating content for them. You're filling a need that they have and they're filling a need that you have. It's not an even exchange, it's not like I'll shout you out and you shout me out. It's hey, I'll create content of your resources being used in the classroom. This is what it's going to look like and you wanna do this super professional, so take a couple of resources from your own store so that you're not wasting your time. You can repurpose this content and create those types of videos for your own products.
Speaker 1:Then I would reach out to these brands or to these businesses and I would say, hey, I am looking for ways to grow my Instagram account, grow my email list, whatever, and I probably wouldn't start with that. I'd probably end on that note, but I'd say, hey, I really love creating content in the classroom and I do this on a regular basis, mostly with my own products, but sometimes I use products from other TPT sellers, like this product in your store, and I want to shout it out and I want to talk about it. But I also want to make sure that I'm getting a good return on my investment, and so I would love to create three videos for you that look similar to this. Send them an example, and I would love for us to be able to work out an exchange where tell them exactly what you want, so where you share my email opt-in in your stories. Or where you share my email opt-in in your stories, or where you share my email opt-in to your followers in stories and, you know, give them a call to action link to my email opt-in, tell them what it's going to be, and so you get this content that you can use. You would have rights to it to use it on your own page and then in exchange, I get a shout out so you can kind of barter in that way where it creates content for your Instagram account or your TikTok account, because you need to create content there anyway, and rather than getting paid for that directly, they pay you with the exposure that you want. So this is a really simple way to do this. Now I've seen people do it before where they create the content in hopes that it'll be shared and then that sharing will get them the exposure that they want, and I just don't think that that's a great long-term strategy.
Speaker 1:I would have in writing exactly what you want and I would ask them to directly give a shout out to your Instagram account Say I'm really loving following this girl. For A, b, c and D reasons, you should go follow her. Or to say, like he came across this really great free resource for kindergarten teachers. Go check it out, go download it and give the call to action to go sign up for your email list. So something really direct, not just like, hey, I'm gonna create this content, could you reshare it? Not like that. You really want something measurable in exchange so that if they say, go join her email list, you can see exactly how many people came and joined your email list so you can decide whether or not it was worth your time to do it again. Same for like the follower count. If you ask them to give a direct call to action to go and follow you, then you want to be able to see is that going to be worth me doing again for this person? If you have some sort of vague terms of, like you share this content, I get exposure, you might get more views, but you may not get the followers that you want and you're never going to know if it's because of the way the content was presented, in that it was just shared and people weren't told to come and follow you. You know that kind of thing. You want to make sure that the results are measurable, so you know whether or not it's going to be worth your time to continue to work with that person and make partnerships with them in the future.
Speaker 1:Now, on the flip side of this, if you do have an audience that you can use and you can share, then this could look a little different. Rather than saying I'm going to create content for you and you give me this story, shout out, it could be something way bigger. It could be like I want you to email your email list, my email opt-in Like, rather than just to sharing in stories. You could ask for something bigger in exchange for creating this content for you. I'm going to post it because I have an audience. I'm going to post it so you're going to get exposure to my audience, and then I want exposure to your email list audience, so it could be that kind of an exchange and you can have the content when I'm done with it.
Speaker 1:Number two a second way to barter or trade and we're still going to stick with social media here for a minute could be to collaborate on a reel series or a TikTok series. I love the idea of this because, honestly, everybody needs content. We are all looking to create content that is going to perform and if you can create a series where each reel is posted as a collab, so whoever has the bigger audience, they can post it to their audience and tag you as a collaborator. Not only does that build exposure for your brand, but you're helping them to create really high quality content. And if you're kind of on the side where you're like well, I only have 300 followers, I want to partner with someone who has 5,000 followers, how do we do this in a way that's going to be mutually beneficial? I think. Even if you're still looking at that like 300 to 5,000, we're talking about somebody who's still only has 5,000 followers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you might not be giving them as much exposure, but the whole fact of the matter is that you guys can repost this as a trial reel and there are so many ways to take a piece of content and get as much life out of it as possible and it benefit both of you. So you could each repost as a trial reel and tag the other person. You could post your feed initially and tag the other as a collaborator, like. You can do all of these things and it's great for them. So if it takes off and it's sent out beyond their own audience, that's still great exposure for them. So if it takes off and it's sent out beyond their own audience, that's still great exposure for them. They don't necessarily have to have the exposure of your audience. Now we would be talking about a much bigger imbalance if we're talking about, like you have 300 followers and they have 50,000 followers. That's gonna be a pretty big difference.
Speaker 1:But just finding someone to make content with. I think that this is where I found that TPT sellers are much more willing to collaborate if it brings value to them. Again, they're always looking for a way to make content. So think about a series like two ideas or 14 building activities for the first day of school, and you could have like a series of this is my classroom management system, or this is my bellwork system, or this is my exit strategy, or this is what we do as soon as the kids come into the classroom. This is what we do as soon as the kids leave the classroom. Every teacher is going to have something slightly different. So you guys can create content where you're both sharing your points of view, where you both teach first grade or kindergarten or half top, first grade or kindergarten, and you're sharing this is how I did it and this is how I did it, and you're showing those two perspectives and how both ways can be great. And if you plan the content out really well. I think that this could be a hit of a series with teachers, because they're getting to see two different perspectives all in the same video.
Speaker 1:You could even make it seem like it's gonna be kind of like not controversial, but like how I handle classroom management versus this other teacher and one classroom management strategy versus another. You could find a place where you disagree and I don't mean disagree in terms of like, my way is better, but like disagree in terms of like. I personally prefer to do it this way. I don't use that method. It hasn't worked for me for these reasons, to do it this way. I don't use that method. It hasn't worked for me for this, these reasons. Do you know what I'm saying? You can kind of feed off of each other and create interesting conversations within a reel without you guys just talking back and forth to each other.
Speaker 1:You can clip pieces together or even giving classroom tours to kindergarten teachers. So you could turn this into a whole series where it starts with like something for back to school but then it turns into well, here's one resource and here's how we would use it, two different ways. So one example that comes to mind is we have inside of RTA and Reset, every Branded Teacher Academy we have an occupational therapist and she talks about different ways to use, like classic worksheets that will help build fine motor skills. And it's not that one way is necessarily better than the other, it's just that one method for using the worksheet it might be aimed at helping students with letter recognition and really just focusing on that, whereas the occupational therapist may be more focused on like, yeah, let's learn letter recognition, but along the way we're also going to learn fine motor skills, grip strength, things like that. So creating a series where you have a traditional classroom teacher alongside an occupational therapist talking about two different ways to use the same worksheet and they're both targeting the same audience gold where the teacher who's viewing gets perspective from both the teacher and the occupational therapist, and they walk away with a treasure trove of different ideas for how they can use that same resource and comment below and you can get the link to all the resources that we used here right, so you can kind of take turns trading and you can pick today we'll do seller number one's resource and tomorrow we'll do seller number two and you can kind of trade off that way. So you're both creating high quality content for your audience and you're building exposure for your brand.
Speaker 1:Another really simple way to collaborate I know I've talked about this one before, but I think it's so simple and overlooked by a lot of TPT sellers is to do a really simple freebie shout out in your email list. Now you do have to have an existing email list for this, where it's really not gonna work with you. And as a side note, I would even recommend that, if you have an existing email list, don't do this kind of trade with people who don't, because it's not gonna benefit you and I know you're gonna be like well, lauren, you're kind of talking out of both sides of your mouth now, but you should be getting some value for your trades. So if you are sending leads to someone else, you need to be getting leads in exchange or something in exchange. And it doesn't have to be an equal number, but like, if I have 5000 people on my email list, I would probably be willing to trade with someone who has 2000 and not do that on a regular basis, but like for sure, every now and then, those 2000 people that they may have on their email list could be super active and engaged and could be more valuable to me than trading with someone who has 10,000, because their 2,000 are just more active and engaged. So just participating in a quick freebie swap where I say, hey, go check out Brooklyn's free resource, and when you join her email list you get this for free, and putting that inside of my email, at the bottom of the email or at the top of the email, and then she sends out an email to her list that says the same thing hey, go check out Lauren's free resource, when you join her email list you'll get this. And it's really simple. The whole email doesn't even have to be dedicated to it. It could just be like a little section in the center, and this could be something that you do on a regular basis where, like once every six weeks, you have a trade with someone and you just have a running list of people that you're going to conduct these trades with. That would be a really simple way to organically grow your email list over time.
Speaker 1:If you don't have an email audience and you're looking to grow it, another way to do this would be to do a blog hop. So number four would be to do a blog hop where you create a blog post and you collaborate with other people in your niche and you say, okay, all four of us are going to write a blog post and you collaborate with other people in your niche and you say, okay, all four of us are going to write a blog post on a similar theme creating back to school routines, or back to school crafts. We're all going to write a blog post that fits into this theme. And then what you do is you kind of collect all of those blog posts and you create what I would call like a mother post and you would say four ways to prep for back to school or four back to school activity ideas, or something like along those lines. You're going to give a brief synopsis of each of those four blog posts that were created in this mother post and link to those posts.
Speaker 1:Now, inside of those individual posts, you can have email opt-ins. You can have like whatever. Let's say, I'm partnering with three other people Brooklyn, aaron, mary, right, and so between myself, brooklyn, aaron and Mary, we have four blog posts, each one of us. In our blog posts, we have an email opt-in or an opt-in to go join our email list. Well, now, even if none of us have an audience, we can all go create pins, put them on Pinterest. We can link to this blog post anywhere we want to. If we have an audience, like we can send it to an email list, we can post about it on social media. We can do whatever. And if we don't have any of that, we could just really search engine optimize that to the best of our ability, create pins on Pinterest and try to drive traffic that way and hope that in over the next year or two, that if we continue to do this, that this is going to be something long-term that's going to help grow all of our email lists, because we're all linking to each other's blog posts, we're all helping each other out and we're all promoting it in the best ways that we can. You could even have some sort of commitment where we say like, hey, for the next three years, come back to school season, we are all gonna share this post to whatever audience that we have. You could have some sort of commitment like that, but that's not necessary. You can still just have all of the posts linked to each other.
Speaker 1:Lastly, one of my favorite ways to trade value early on and this doesn't necessarily have to do with growing your list, but could be to trade skillsets. So let's say that you are really good at creating eye catching covers and thumbnails Like you're just really good at graphic design, but someone else is really good at creating content. You could say, hey, I have these templates for resources and they need content or short stories written or whatever, and you can trade off and say, if you will create this set of worksheets from this template that I have, then I will give your covers a refresh. I'll create covers and thumbnails for you for your products. Or maybe trade off and say, send me these, I'll do product photography for you if you will create resources for my store using my templates. And so each of you is able to kind of use your own skillset. So if you're like I'm going to be pulling out the light boxes, I'm going to be pulling out the camera and get the editing software and doing all of that anyway for my own products in two weeks. So I might as well do it for a couple of other people while I'm at it. Send them really great photos and in the meantime they created five new products for me while I was just doing product photography, and so you're able to batch a little bit more efficiently. It costs neither one of you any money and is a win win for both of you. So you get to stock your store and they get high quality photos, or maybe they're really good at editing and proofreading and you're really good at writing short stories or passages or things like that. You can trade off those skill sets.
Speaker 1:I do think it's really important that anytime you're creating this type of bartering system where you're having to put something in with the exception of, maybe, like the email freebie swap, because I feel like that's pretty easy and if somebody messes that up, it's not like a huge loss on your part, it's not a huge loss of time or energy or effort but for everything else, make sure that you have your terms very explicitly stated and, especially if you're trading work, I would have very tight timelines and I would have some sort of written agreement between the two of you with some sort of stipulation of like if you don't do this, then I won't do this. Like maybe it's I won't send product photos until I get those resources back, or I won't send resources until I get product photos back something along those lines. Or maybe even something like if I don't get these products by this date, then you will have to pay me X amount of dollars for doing the product photography Like you could work something out and it could be something really simple. It doesn't have to be like some sort of monetary fine or fee or something that makes you uncomfortable, but I would have something in writing and make it very explicit. Life does get the best of us sometimes, and even people with really good intentions who have every intention of following through on what they say they're going to do, they may not follow through. And you do want to have some sort of written agreement in place just to kind of make sure the follow through is there and that no one is confused on exactly what is expected of them, because I think that's the other thing is that there can be sometimes some confusion, but when you put a contract in front of someone, they're like oh okay, I better take this very seriously and make sure I know exactly what my deliverables are supposed to be, what I'm supposed to do and when it's due. If you're looking forward to trying one of these strategies, I want you to drop it down in the comments below and tell us which strategy you are going to try. I can't wait to read all about it.
Speaker 1:Make sure you like this video and subscribe. I put out content all the time to help TPT sellers grow their businesses in ways that are purposeful and sustainable. Now we are going to be taking a short podcast break. So for the remainder of July we're going to be on a little break and I'm going to take some time away because I've got a really busy work season and then we will be back during back to school season with more fantastic episodes and advice. Make sure you've checked out some of my videos like back to school strategies, summer strategies, things like that. Check out all of the content that's on this channel. There's so much and same for the podcast. If you're listening on the podcast and you're new here, go back. Check out. We have a ton of episodes. At this point. We've been doing this for gosh I wanna say four seasons. So there's lots to catch up on and I'm gonna see you guys right back here in about a month. Bye all.