YOU’VE GOT TO BE WILLING TO DIY IT AT FIRST When first beginning a new business venture there are no guarantees it’s going to work out, not for a want of trying or persistence, but sometimes it’s just not the one – and that’s OK! It’s important to test drive ideas out before getting fully invested anyway. So how can you tell if your business is scalable of not, especially if you’re just starting out your growth beyond TpT?  The key is by saving capital. It makes no sense to throw tonnes of money at something before you know its potential and before you start making revenue from it. Or maybe you don’t have tonnes of money to throw at a business idea yet! Either way, doing it DIY style will help you in starting to scale. I recently designed my own eCommerce store on my site from scratch and did it all DIY style. It’s a good thing too as you never know how long it is going to take before you see a return on the amount you spent to get it off the ground! At least when you DIY it, everything you make is profit from the

WHAT IS IN A NAME, ANYWAY? Juliette didn’t seem to care, but we all know your name is key in business! In the previous blog post, you learned how to identify your ideal niche for your expanded teacherpreneur business. Now that you have established that, it’s time to think of a catchy name for this extension of your business. Your name is key. It says everything about what your audience need to know about you and what you can offer. BUT, its also a good idea to make sure you have room to grow in it too. GET YOUR NAME RIGHT NOW, IT WILL SAVE YOU TROUBLE LATER There’s nothing worse than narrowing your name to a specific subject or grade and the deciding later down the road that you actually want to offer something else. Your name won’t match what you offer anymore and that can get confusing for when you want to attract an audience. I’ll be really vulnerable with you here so you can learn from my mistakes. My store on TpT is “Teachers Resource Force”. Honestly, I don’t love it. So many times people have made an effort to refer me and have gotten my name

IDENTIFYING A CLEAR NICHE HELPS YOU ATTRACT YOUR IDEAL AUDIENCE You know that feeling when you’re having a conversation with someone and you accidentally let slip something personal about yourself that you don’t often tell people because they’ll think you’re weird… like how sometimes you only have popcorn for dinner or something? You suddenly bite on your lips and think “Oh no, I didn’t mean to say that…” but then instead of the awkward, judgemental silence, they scream “OMG, saaaaaame”! Yeh, that feeling! ? That’s what it means to find your people. Your tribe. Or in business terms, your audience. There’s no better feeling than finding someone who just gets you and your weird, unique traits and needs – for both you as a business owner, as well as your audience! Finding your audience is so important for your business, and it might be that having a “teacher audience” is actually just too vague. Casting your net too wide or not being clear on what your audience will learn from you, could mean you will lose them as they’re not sure if “you’re right for each other.” Your people need to see your site / title / content / what

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO TURN YOUR IDEAS INTO A VIABLE BUSINESS BEYOND TPT? Oh, I know you have ideas… Wanna know how I can be so sure? Because you’re a teacher! It’s in your DNA, even if you don’t know it. Coming up with ideas is like a walk in the park for you. You’re used to having to get so creative in thinking of 100 different ways to help your students. But not only do you have to deliver content to them, you have to get them to enjoy receiving it and learn it too. That’s no small feat. So that’s how I know ideas are probably not your problem. (You’ll get to see what you have floating around up there when you try out my 3 step system to getting a teacherpreneur business off the ground, later on in this article.) Once you’re clear on the fact that you’re ready to extend your teacherpreneur business beyond TpT, one barrier you can face is knowing which of these ideas are most viable to turn into business plans, beyond selling resources on TeachersPayTeachers. Let’s break it down to help you choose. NOT ALL YOUR BUSINESS IDEAS WILL WORK AS

TPT ROCKS! BUT YOU DON’T OWN IT… Selling on Teachers Pay Teachers is great. I love it and owe so much to the opportunities they have given me, and I am sure you feel the same! It’s just important to be aware that while it’s very possible that you can be very successful for years on end, it’s also important to recognize that if TpT decide to change something drastic (and they can), your business as you know it could end overnight.  If you’ve been around in the teacher seller space for the past few years, you might recall a site called Teacher’s Notebook. A lot of TpT sellers were also housing their resources there too, but in September 2018 it shut down. Completely gone. Vanished. Kaput. Sayonara. That means everyone who relied on that site as their income stream had the rug pulled from under them in a flash and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. A few months later, the same thing happened to Educents.com and TeachWise.com. I’m sure they aren’t the only ones. So all that time spent transferring uploading to those sites – wasted time. All those pins – now redundant and being directed