Grow With Angie And April: A Podcast For Teacherpreneurs

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

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 mo

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

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 charge

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!

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

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 bl

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 ad

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

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 se

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 subscri

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

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 t

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 t