Maximizing Your Income on TeachersPayTeachers

This course is meant for anyone interested in making additional income through TeachersPayTeachers (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com). You can establish a supplemental source of income through TeachersPayTeachers with potential for active or passive income.

When I first signed up for TPT, I signed up for the free resources, as many teachers do. When I did upload a few activities to my store, I remember feeling so excited for my first sale, and even more excited for my first 4-star rating. Then, I remember hearing a story about how much money the top educators were earning on TPT, and it got me thinking that there must be a lot of potential in this service and there must be a lot of people not yet taking advantage of the system.

Here is what I made in a two month span BEFORE I implemented my 10 Steps to Maximizing TPT Earnings:

Yep, that's right, I earned a whole $1.20 in a two-month period.

During the Summer of 2016, I used my knowledge of sales, marketing, education, and curriculum construction to establish a set of rules and guidelines I would follow to boost the success of my online TPT store. Here are my earnings for the same two month period, one year later.

TeachersPayTeachers could be what allows you to stay home with your young children, afford that vacation you keep saying you'll take, or finally start paying off those student loans and credit card bills. If you have a basic understanding of computers, experience in the field of education, and the effective strategies described within this course, you can find success on TeachersPayTeachers. I know you can!

-Jessica Gordon

Feel free to download the PowerPoint to print or use online for note-taking purposes! It outlines each of the ten steps, as well as the main talking points within each section.

STEP ONE: TPT BASICS

When you're ready to create your TPT seller account, please visit https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Signup/referral:9y289g to get started. Select "Basic Seller Account".

Starting Your TPT Account

The first step of this process is simply establishing your TPT account. If you already have an account on TeachersPayTeachers and are well-versed on how to navigate the site and its features, you may feel comfortable skipping ahead to Seller Features.

For those of you who are new to TPT, I am going to show you how to register for an account. Since I already have an account, I will be setting up a dummy account for demonstration purposes.

Navigating Seller Features

Right now, we are going to look at the “SELL” section

• Dashboard - Followers, Rating, Link to your page, Traffic, Marketing, Manage Products, Add New Product…
  • Adding a New Product
• Sales Details - Who bought what, how many, and when. You cannot message buyers to thank them for their purchase, but if they give you a review, you can respond to their review with a positive comment.
• Product Listings - Edit, Quick Edit, https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Text-Structures-Rap-Iggy-Azalea-Parody-1559022 “Primary Free”, and Featured Items.
• Product Statistics - conversion rate, sales, ratings, pageviews, previews, “wish listed” items.
• My Store - What the customer sees.

Creating a Professional Profile

• Professional Picture/Something that humanizes you to your buyers. For example, I use one of my wedding photos with my daughter. It’s a professional photo, but also shows that I’m a regular person with a family, someone you could see yourself working with or going to church with.
• Choose a quote that means something to you. I chose ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder” because that it my mantra, but you could choose any personal or inspirational quote that is appropriate.
• Fill out your bio! No one wants to buy from a faceless person with no profile. Think about eBay or even Facebook Marketplace. You feel most comfortable buying from someone when you know more about them. List your experiences, qualifications, and something that (once again) humanizes you, such as your love for Disney movies or karaoke.

View Top Sellers - Centers, Task Cards, and “No Prep Activities and Bundles”

Narrow in on the “Right Sellers” - Who do you share similarities with? (Same grade levels, interests, etc.) Which store or seller reminds you of yourself?

Choosing Viable Concepts -

• Keep an ongoing list of project ideas on your phone’s memo pad, or on a Google Doc.
• Make a list of things that YOU would buy.
• What would your colleagues say there is a need for in their curriculum? What is something you always have a hard time finding online that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Ask your coworkers and friends on Facebook for ideas!
• What are others selling successfully? How can you take those ideas and make them uniquely yours?

Passions - Make things you love, that way even if no one ever buys it, you’ll use it yourself!

Powers - What are your “superpowers”? What are you the best at? What would your colleagues and administrators says your strongest subjects are? Whatever they are, focus on those when creating products for TPT. Focusing on your strengths means that what you produce will be higher quality, and will take you less time to create since you are already so knowledgeable in that area.

I am not saying that an ELA teacher cannot create profitable math task cards or science activity packets, but they will spend more time on the research and production of those listings than they would if they were reworking a set of main idea task cards.

Primary Staples - What are the main standards or essential learning outcomes for your strongest subject area(s)? What is something you know all middle school Math teachers cover every year? What is your district wanting your staff to focus on this school-year?

As a fifth grade reading teacher, I brainstormed this list of essential standards:

1. Main Idea & Supporting Details
2. Nonfiction Text Structures
3. Inferences
4. Theme
5. Context Clues & Word Meanings
6. Previously learned concepts such as Sequencing and Fact & Opinion

From this list I made some of my top-selling products, including a set of Nonfiction Text Structure Task cards and Main Idea & Supporting Detail Task Cards. Because I created a popular type of item, task cards, and chose concepts that are heavily focused on, my finished products quickly became popular, with a solid 20% sales conversion rate for both sets of task cards.

Who? When? Why? - At first, I asked that you think about what YOU would buy, but to further increase sales, it is important to think about your buyers.

• Who will buy your products?
  • Teachers? Parents? Counselors?
• When will they most likely buy your product? How can you take advantage of this?
  • When are teachers most likely to purchase new curriculum and educational activities?
    • Nearing the end of summer break
    • First Months of School
    • Beginning a new semester
    • Gearing up for Standardized Testing
    • When preparing for a sub
    • When searching for themed activities for a specific holiday, topic, or literature set.
• Concept-Lexile Agreement
  • Lexile Level, or reading level is important to consider when you are creating products to be read and used by learners.
  • It is important that an activity covering a 3rd grade skills is able to be read with fluency by the average 3rd grader.
  • Not checking that the wordage within your product correspond to the age it is targeting can lead to negative reviews and unhappy customers.
  • Use a free website like https://readable.io/text/ and paste in text from your product to check the readability level of your product.

• Theme-Grade Level Agreement
  • It is important not only that the reading level of your product match the reading level of the intended audience, but also that the theme or look of your product match the interest and age-level of your audience.
    • For example, I had the idea to make a new set of task cards. They were adorable, unicorn-themed Main Idea task cards. I had fun creating them, and new with the current popularity of unicorns that they would be an instant hit.
    • Here was the lexile breakdown of my unicorn task cards:

Lexile Measure

910L

Here are the Lexile Ranges for each grade level (25th Percentile to the 75th Percentile).

4 445L to 810L

5 565L to 910L

6 665L to 1000L

7 735L to 1065L

8 805L to 1100L

I doubly messed up with these task cards. First, I used a younger theme, but the lexile level of the cards is geared toward upper middle school and junior high.

I also chose “Main Idea” as the concept for these task cards, which is a popular topic, but for students younger than 6-8th grade. In order for these task cards to sell, I would need to reword them so the theme and lexile level falls into a more appropriate 2nd to 4th grade range.

Needless to say, only one person bought my misaligned unicorn task cards.

As you establish your product base, you are building a brand. When you visit TPT website you’ll notice that they use certain formats and layouts for each item page and seller profile page. Their banners, logos, and other identifying information are always neatly arranged in predictable patterns throughout site. Everything on the TPT site looks as those someone placed in there INTENTIONALLY, which is how you want your TPT listings to look.

Cover Sheets - Establish a uniform look. Choose a premade template, play with the colors and fonts until you decide on a format for your brand of products. In our next section, I will share with you a copy of the template I use for my store.

Here is an example of the format I use for my store.

The clean lines, consistent font style, and singular image placed in the bottom right-hand corner of the cover sheet is what I started using as the main image for my new listings. It looks more professional than some of my older listings seen below:

Listing Descriptions & Phrasing - You want the flow of your descriptions of each of your listings to feel the same, following a standard pattern.

Example Listing Description Pattern:

1. TITLE AND OVERVIEW
2. INCLUDED MATERIALS LIST
3. LEXILE/READABILITY LEVEL
4. RECOMMENDATION(S) FOR USE/TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION

That this pattern might look like:

Main Idea - These 20 task cards contain fictional and informational text that could help your students master the skills of spotting and giving the main idea and the supporting details.

Each card incorporates the game of Pokemon, Pokemon characters, or the game of Pokemon Go!

This unit includes:

*20 Main Idea Task Cards

*Answer Key

To assess the general level of the material within these cards, I input eight of the task cards into the analyzer at Lexile.com.

Lexile Measure

820L

Here are the Lexile Ranges for each grade level (25th Percentile to the 75th Percentile).

4 445L to 810L

5 565L to 910L

6 665L to 1000L

7 735L to 1065L

8 805L to 1100L

The level of these cards are about 820, so I would recommend them for any end of the year or advanced fourth graders, fifth, sixth, and seventh and eighth graders who are struggling with the concept of Main Idea.

Pick a format and stick to it! If you later decide on an improvement to your listing format, be sure to go back through and update each of your listings, especially your featured and top-selling products.

Free Resources - There are so many freebies out there to get you started on building your store! There are free task card templates, free flashcard templates, and even free templates for TPT store banners to replace the quote section of your seller page.

Scan the QR Code, or Click the following link: https://padlet.com/jessicagordon/23gguxpd4z4

PASSCODE: 3232

Template Making - Once you’ve created a set of task cards using a template (I do this on Google Slides), you can then simply alter the color slightly and or the subject matter and use the same template over and over. Task cards are simple, so why reinvent the wheel with each set?

Working and Reworking - Once you’ve created something, make a secondary copy of it before reworking it into a new product. This is especially easy if you are using Google Slides as you can click “File” and “Make Copy”. Rename the copy with the title of your next product.

Another thing I like about Google Drive and Google Slides is that your progress is always automatically saved. You cannot lose your hard work if you accidentally exit out of the screen or even if someone breaks your computer. Everything is backed up online in your drive. You can even download the Google Drive app and view and edit your projects from your mobile device when you can’t get to a computer.

Student Interests - What are the current “fads” or trends that students are positively responding to? How can you take a solid idea for a product and couple it with something students love?

Examples: Fidget Spinners, Pokemon, Dabbing, Squishies, Lil Pump, Animals, Sports, Tide Pods (Just kidding, maybe not Tide Pods).

Educational Trends - Cooperative Learning, Task Cards, Blended Learning, QR Code Hunts, Breakout/Escape Rooms, Learning Centers…

Bundling - Once you’ve established three to five products that fall under the same category or subject and grade-level, you can start “Bundling” your products on TPT. This means that you offer buyers a lower cost for buying more than one product together. My task card sets may be $2 each, but I could bundle four sets together for $6, essentially making it a buy 3 get one free deal. Of course, you will earn less than if someone bought all four sets separately, but many buyers will not want all four sets at once unless they are getting a discount. Remember, for the most part you are selling to teachers, and teachers love discounts!

Free Listings - What are some quality worksheets or other short activities that you’ve made in the past? Add at least three to five free listings on TPT so you may start building up your store rating. Of course, these products still need to be high-quality, but buyers generally give 4.0 ratings for products they download for free.

Since you are unable to directly message customers who’ve downloaded the product, this may take time to build a large amount ratings. My premier free item has been downloaded over 3,000 times, yet only has 20 ratings, but each of those 20 ratings are 4.0, so it all helps protect my rating from the occasional dissatisfied customer.

In my years on TPT, I have only receive three reviews I would consider to be negative. Two of them were disappointed that there was not more material with the product, which is why I am very adamant about detailing exactly how many task cards, pages, or questions are included. Unfortunately, even if you clearly describe the product, TPT will only omit a customer rating if they complain of download issues.

My third negative rating said that the customer could not download the material properly on their computer. I emailed TPT and they deleted the review within seven days. Currently, my store sits at a respectable 3.9.

Using Your Resources - Ask colleagues to download and rate your free listings, and follow your store account! This is an easy way to establish a presence on TPT and start building that buffer of 4.0 ratings.

Enabling Your Store - TPT often runs promotional sales that you can opt into. When you log in to your account there will be a green banner that contains information about the sale. It will follow with a link that says “Ready My Store” or “Ready Your Store”. From there, you are able to choose which if not all your products you would like to mark down to participate in the site-wide sale.

Although your first thought may be “but won’t I make less money….” but I have never opted into a sale and regretted it. More traffic is directed to your page during TPT sales and I always sell more volume during these promotions than on a regular day.

Featuring Products - Once you add a few products to your store, you’ll start to appreciate which ones are your “winners”. The products you feel will be most profitable should be your “Featured Products”. You are able to feature for listings at time and these will be the products listed first, at the top of your store page.

To edit which products are featured, click Product Listings, Quick Edit, and select the “Featured” box. If you already have four featured listings, you will have to click “Quick Edit” and deselect featured on one of your current listings in order to replace it with a new featured listing.

Choosing Sale Percentages - I never discount listings more than 20%, as it does lesson your margin or your after transaction profits. TPT’s promotions tend to run with 10% and up to 20% off, but tend not to ask sellers to discount farther than 20% during site-wide sales.

Outlets - Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Podcasts,

http://www.coolcatteacher.com/3-teacher-money-making-opportunities-using-technology/

Hashtags - At first I was resistant to hashtags. I felt that they were silly and didn’t serve a real purpose, but I was wrong. Using specific hashtags to post product launches and sales can boost your profits immensely.

Here is a list of hashtags I have used and have found success with.

#elachat

#edchat

#edtech

#engchat

#education

#mathchat

#tpt

#teacherspayteachers

#lrnchat (social media and education)

#blendchat (blended learning)

#elearning

#pbl/#pblchat (project-based learning)

#passiondriven

Timing Posts -

You can’t just post things to social media whenever you think about it if you want to be effective.

80% of people in the US fall under the Central Standard of Eastern Time Zones, so keep that in mind when choosing a time to post. The apps Buffer, HootSuite, Tweetdeck, and SocialOomph all offer the ability to schedule posts, so you can plan ahead and have the app post for you at a specific time. This is great, since the best times to post are commonly said to be between 1 p.m.–3 p.m, when most teachers would still be busy at school.

The Huffington Post has reported that in order to optimize the number of likes and retweets your posts receive, you want to push them out between noon and five pm. I’d say that 2 pm to 4 pm seems to be the sweet spot for reaching the types of people who would be following education-specific hashtags.

Beyond deciding what hour of the day to post, you also want to plan your posts strategically around sales, new product releases, and special occasions such as holidays. A simple example is having the foresight to set up a post to go out during the first week of October, promoting a Halloween-Themed activity bundle perfect for teachers who still have three weeks to choose fun activities for Halloween week or during their Halloween parties. I once purchased a similar product because I knew I would be out of the building with a substitute near Halloween and wanted to leave something education but enjoyable for my students to work on.

JULY THROUGH SEPTEMBER ARE VITAL!

My best months for sales on TPT are always July through September. Teachers are collaborating and planning for the next year, school is starting, and TPT always has sales and promotions you can “ready your store” for. If you are beginning to build your brand now, you want to try to have as many strong products on your page by mid-July. If you can do this, and promote effectively through social media outlets and appropriate hashtags, you will successfully make more than you spent on back to school supplies! My hope is that by the end of September you’ll be so happy you took this course and it will have paid for itself ten times over.

HOT TIP: I mentioned in the video that you can shorten the URL address of your product so that you have more "characters" or space free for the words and hashtags you want to include in your tweets and other social media posts.

How to shorten your URL

1. Copy the URL address (Ctrl + C)

2. Go to goo.gl or https://goo.gl/

3. Paste (Ctrl + V) in your URL and click "shorten".

4. Copy and use your new, shorter, web address!